


Never Planned On You

by ships_to_sail



Category: Hockey RPF, Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Historical, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Barebacking, Bi!Sid, Blowjobs, Boxing & Fisticuffs, Eventual Smut, Flirting, Fluff, M/M, Outdoor Sex, Rimming, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-01-19 10:34:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 29,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12408705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ships_to_sail/pseuds/ships_to_sail
Summary: A hush settled over the crowd as everyone gathered realized what had just happened: in less than four rounds, this newcomer had managed to knock out a well known local. Sid began to clap, but stopped suddenly when every set of eyes around him - including Hagelin’s - settled on him with silent rage. These people, Sid realized, hadn’t managed to bet as wisely as he had before the match started.Sid always took a long shot.OR;the Geno-is-a-bareknuckle-boxer Newsies AU I never knew I always wanted until it was my job to write it!





	1. Ain't It a Fine Life

It was a rare day that mail arrived for any of them, and even rarer that it arrived for Sidney. And yet, there it was, pinched between Flower’s dusty fingers as he waggled it enticingly. Sid reached out and cuffed him gently on the back of the head.

“What do you think you’re doing, huh? Get your dusty prints off my mail.” He barely managed to wipe his hands on his own jeans before plucking the postcard from Flower and shoving it in the pocket of his vest. He managed to spy just the smallest corner of Taylor’s signature and the corner of his mouth quirked up. She'd promised to write him, but he hadn’t thought it would be that fast - if you could call almost six months fast. Sidney knew there would be plenty of time to read it later, though. After the day’s papes were sold and he could tuck in for the night with food in his belly and his boots on his feet.

Clapping Duper on the shoulder and ruffling Flower’s hair, Sid slid his cap onto his head and grabbed a paper still warm from the presses, waving it high in the air. “NEW YORK GIANTS SET TO LOSE IT ALL,” he yelled, as behind him a chorus of male voices filled the air. 

*

“Jesus, Sid, it is for sure gonna rain tomorrow. My leg is killing me.” Hagelin slid onto the bench next to Sid and bumped his shoulder amicably. Sid looked at the man and smiled, handing him a mug and clinking the two together. 

“Aw, I’m sorry Hagey. You know it sells at least twenty papes a week, easy, though.” The other man chuckled and shook his head vehemently, bringing the beer to his lips.

“With a face like this, I don’t need the help.” Sid chuckled too and drained the rest of the ale in his glass. He wasn’t typically a big drinker - he let the boys think so, but one too many nights on the streets before landing in the Refuge, and then the newsie house, meant he’d never come to like losing his control - but it had been a great day for sales and he had a postcard from his sister waiting to be read. He’d made damn near two dollars, and he flipped the drink girl an extra coin when she replaced his mug with a full one. She looked at him with big eyes and a bright smile, and Sid felt the back of his neck flush. She was a pretty girl, and Sid’s day had been amazing so far. He took another sip as the bell rang for the next fight, and Sid turned his eyes to the ring.

Sid had been coming to the bare knuckle matches from the minute he’d set foot in the city. There was something about the energy, the power and the athleticism that had always been a draw for him. For a brief flash of time, Sid had considered entering one of the bouts himself, but he’d dismissed it almost as quickly. Sid could fight for himself, or for someone who needed him to, but he knew he’d never be able to do it the way these other men did.

The fight about to start was going to be a good one. A long-standing ring runner was up against someone whose name Sid had never heard but who, from what the whispers said, could very well be the new James Jeffries. The newcomer had his back to Sid now, and he could see the challenger’s broad back as he swung his arms back and forth. The man’s arms were long, but his legs were longer, and Sid dragged his eyes up and down the ridges and valleys of muscles. The sun was setting, casting the ring in a kind of hazy golden glow as what remained of the sun filtered and broke amongst the building-studded landscape of the city. As the bell rang for the fight to start, the challenger began to shift his weight back and forth, slowly, and Sid noticed how long his fingers were as he tucked them into fists. A warmth curled in his belly, a small spark that exploded into the midday sun as the boxers circled the ring and the stranger finally came around to face Sidney. All Sid could see were giant brown eyes and a nose crooked from multiple past breakings. He had a lazy smile on his face, and his arms were up loosely by his face, relaxed as though he was staring down a reluctant kitten and not another guy with at least two inches and 50 pounds on him. 

Sid brought his beer to his lips and found that, somehow, the mug was empty again. He held it above his head until he caught the eye of the same girl from before, and she dipped her chin to him as the crowd around them booed and a sick thump sounded from the ring. Sid’s eyes rocketed back around and saw what looked, to him, to be the same scene from before. No sign at all of what had made the crowd react - at least, not on first pass. But as Sid tore his eyes away again from that dangerous smile, he noticed that the other man in the ring, the winner for the past several nights in a row, had slowed down and was pressing one palm firmly to the space beneath his ribs on his right side. Which, Sid remembered, was the dangerous bit - the man was used to hitting with his left hand. So he’d been left with the choice between leaving his ribs exposed, again, or fighting with his bad hand. It was almost too perfect, and Sid watched more closely as the two danced around each other. The challenger took his time, pacing at variable speeds until dodging in and out again and again, taking three body shots before he struck again. He landed another spot to the darkening rib bruise before bringing his arm around and landing a heavy blow to the other man’s temple. 

A hush settled over the crowd as everyone gathered realized what had just happened: in less than four rounds, this newcomer had managed to knock out a well known local. Sid began to clap, but stopped suddenly when every set of eyes around him - including Hagelin’s - settled on him with silent rage. These people, Sid realized, hadn’t managed to bet as wisely as he had before the match started.

Sid always took a long shot. 

The man stooped to check his opponent’s pulse, climbed through the ring slats, and approached the booker’s table. He held his hand out without a word, and when the pile placed in his hand wasn’t the size he knew it should be, he raised an eyebrow. The booker added another half-dollar piece and muttered something about a five round guarantee, but the challenger was pushing his was through the crowd. And not a minute too soon, because he’d barely reached the street when the shocked silence began to give way to angry murmurings. 

Sid handed Hagelin his bit. “There’s a half-dollar in it for you if you take this to the booker and then straight back to the house. I’ll meet you there in an hour, yeah?”

Hagelin looked at him curiously, then down at the piece of paper in his hand, and then back at Sid. “Sure, Cap. But why?”

Sid lifted his head and scanned the crowd. He saw the final sliver of the stranger’s shoulders as he rounded the corner. He pulled the bill on his hat an inch lower. 

“I’ve got to go see about a boxer.”


	2. Free as Fishes

By the time Sidney had caught up to the man, he had his shirt back on and a tightly rolled cigarette clamped between his lips. Sid came running around the corner of 73rd street, a few blocks from where the fight had been, and almost crashed right into the stranger. He managed to pull himself up short, shoving his hands into his pockets and smiling a smile that felt too big for his face. The other man just raised his eyebrows, his eyes widening in surprise as the ember of his cigarette flared crimson. 

“Oh, um, sorry. I just wanted to find you and say that was a great fight. Russel’s been running the rink for almost a week, and I was starting to think that no one was going to finally be able to take that big lug down. Just last week I told my pal Hagey there was no way anyone was taking him down for another two, three weeks, easy.” Sid was babbling. He knew he was. He was more nervous than he thought he’d be, and he was only about half sure why. The stranger just looked at him, eyes dark, watching Sid’s lips with the same intense focus he’d had when dodging blows in the ring. Sid stopped talking and held out his hand. 

“Sidney Crosby. Newsie.”

“Evgeni Malkin.” The man’s deep voice curled around the starts and stops of the name in a way Sid knew he’d never be able to master. He tried anyway, losing it completely and breaking down into a giggle half way through. Evgeni chuckled, low and deep like a thunderstorm breaking a few miles away.

“Geno,” he said, tapping himself on the chest. Sid smiled, blushing. He’d really wanted to get it right.

“Geno,” he repeated. He fished a few nickels out of his pocket and gestured behind him to an apple cart just getting ready to pack up and head home. “Hungry? My treat?” Geno looked confused for a moment, glancing back and forth between Sid and the apple cart until he nodded, rummaging around in his pocket and pulling out a dime of his own. Sid waved his hands and held his fist towards Geno. “No, I’ll pay. You just won me a whole carts worth of apples, near about, and it’s been a great day so I’d love to be able to-” Geno was smiling and rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, looking adorably, sheepishly lost. Sid clamped his mouth shut and rattled his fist in Geno’s direction again.

Geno shook his head and, wrapping his long fingers around Sid’s wrist, slowly pressed his hand down to his side. He held up his own dime again, gestured towards the apple cart, and winked. He said something that Sidney didn’t understand, but Sid was a smart guy. He could hazard a guess. He slid the coins back in his pocket and smiled warmly, pivoting and gesturing grandly to the cart behind him. “You first.”

By the time they got back to the house, the sun was gone, they’d figured out half a dozen words between them, and it was well past the hour he’d promised Hagelin. He and Geno stood on the front step, each of them finishing up a final cigarette as the stars overhead winked brightly and a horse clomped it’s way down a nearby street. It was quiet, and peaceful, and a damn near perfect ending to the kind of good day Sid hadn’t had in longer than he could remember. 

“Good day,” he said, taking a deep breath and leaning back against one of the porch posts. 

“Good day,” Geno replied, his voice soft. 

Sid’s head shot up - he hadn’t thought Geno knew any English that Sid hadn’t just taught him - but Geno was leaned back against the opposite porch post, his hands shoved in his pockets and his eyes closed. Sid took the moment to appreciate the view in a way he hadn’t been able to as they’d meandered up and down the streets, eating a dozen apples each and trying to climb the language barrier. 

Geno’s limbs were long and his body was solid. But even as relaxed as he seemed, there was a kind of violent energy swirling just beneath the surface. Maybe it was the scars that crisscrossed his knuckles and upper arms, or the lingering traces of bruises Sid could see poking out from his shirt sleeves. Maybe it was the outlines of blood around his fingernails and the faint irony tinge that gave away Geno’s job at the slaughterhouse. But more likely than anything it was the way he couldn’t seem to just hold still. All afternoon, if they hadn’t been walking, Geno had been shifting his weight, shuffling his feet, popping his knuckles, and doing about a million other tiny things that marvelled Sid. He’d never met another human with as much stored potential energy. A brief shudder ran through him as Geno popped his head up and Sid wondered just what all that potential energy was capable of. Geno met his eye and smiled softly, crinkles around the edges of his eyes. He knew Sid’d been looking, and he didn’t care. Sid felt his stomach doing something funny.

Unsure of what else to do now that the apples were gone and the cigarettes were smoked, he ambled towards Geno with his hands in his pockets. He felt awkward all of a sudden. He wasn’t at a loss for words - the opposite. He had so many things he wanted to tell this mysterious new friend, but no words to use that the other man would understand. Sid had the briefest thought that it must be like that for Taylor, on her own in Nova Scotia, and a wave of sadness gripped his chest. His hand wandered to the front pocket of his vest, where he’d shoved Taylor’s postcard from earlier, and smiled. Geno tracked the movement of his hand and pointed with the butt of his cigarette.

“What is?”

Sid pulled out the postcard and held it towards Geno, letting him see it without actually letting go of it. There was a landscape on the front of some cove in Nova Scotia, the trees and water such a similar grey-green that Sid wondered if maybe it was supposed to be a black and white picture. Taylor’s loopy letters filled the back, cramped into every available corner, like she was trying to box herself up and fit on those few square inches. Sid missed her terribly.

“It’s a postcard from my sister, Taylor. My family? She’s in Nova Scotia right now, and a couple more bets like the one you won me today, and I’ll be going to join her.” He couldn’t be sure just how much of what he was saying Geno was understanding, but charging ahead and never looking back had worked pretty well for Sid so far. “It’s beautiful up there.”

Geno nodded. “Beautiful.” Geno looked at him, eyes dark and playful. “Beautiful,” he said again, this time reaching out and poking Sid gently in the chest. Sid glanced around quickly before taking a step closer and putting his index finger in the dip of Geno’s throat and tracing it downward slowly. The skin was warm and firm beneath the layers of fabric, and Sidney found himself on the edge of tearing the whole blasted shirt off.

“Beautiful,” Sidney said quietly. For a guy who wasn’t much good with words, Sid was impressed they’d managed to have quite the conversation between them using only one. But it was a good, good word. 

Sid shivered, half with fear and half with anticipation, as his finger drifted past Geno’s bellybutton and the flat of his palm came to rest fully on Geno’s hip. The boys in the house knew about him, knew that it didn’t make one bit of difference where Sid stayed or who he stayed with as long as he was there for the first bell at dawn. But the boys in the house had grown up with Sid, had been looked after and practically raised by the guy. They owed it to him. The rest of the world, Sid had learned, didn’t own him a damn thing, and was more often than not looking to cash in on debts of its own.

Geno seemed to share his thoughts, too, because after beat his large hand wrapped around Sid’s, squeezed gently, and took the smallest step back. He tilted his head down to grin at Sid, though, which took the sting of the space suddenly between them. Behind him, Sid heard the door open and caught of whiff of that horrible new cologne Duper was wearing, trying to get the attention of the flower girls who sold up and down their block.

A throat cleared. “Uh, cap?”

“Yeah, Dupesie?”

“Hagelin said if you don’t come inside in two minutes, he’s keeping all your winnings and using them to buy a permanent box at the Sheepshead Races.”

Sid chuckled. “You tell Hagey if he touches a penny past that half dollar I promised him, I’ll be collecting a few of his own valuable parts by the time we’re done, yeah?”

“Sure thing, Cap…whose your friend?”

“G’night, Dupesie.” Sid heard the door close behind him. 

Geno was looking at him with a bemused smile. “Cap?”

Sid shrugged, completely unsure of how to explain the concept of a nickname. He waved his hand behind him and said, “I should probably go. Early morning, you know?”

Geno nodded. “Papers?”

Sidney nodded in return, already exhausted at the thought of the dawn bell and how just how close it was. 

Geno nodded and his gaze drifted past Sidney’s shoulder until he seemed to decide on something and gave one more final, resolute nod. “I come.”

He took one long step to bridge the small space between them, planted a dry, warm kiss on Sidney’s cheek, and turned on his heel. He was down the street by the time Sid’s hand found the spot where Geno’s lips had been. Sid couldn’t tear his eyes away until Geno was around the corner and completely out of sight, and still he stood rooted to the spot until the door opened again, Flower this time, and asked to borrow Sidney’s towel.

“I told you to steal another.”

He followed the other man inside and went to finally collect his winnings.


	3. Seize the Day

The day dawned the next morning crisp and fresh, but Sidney wasn't awake to see it. Flower pushed him out of bed the second time Mr. Lemieux walked by, saving him a swift and harsh rousting on the man’s third pass - house rules, and everybody knew it. 

Sid pulled his dusty gray pants and and faded blue shirt from the small pile at his corner of the bunk, and slid his arms into his pinstriped vest, just about the only nice piece of clothing he had to his name. With his cap firmly in place over a fuzzy mess of waves, Sidney was just throwing back his first cup of coffee when Guentzel poked his head in the door and chirped, “Oh Sidneyyy, friend to see you!”

“What kind of lady decent broad is out of bed at this hour looking for a guy like you,” Dupsie chuckled from behind him.

“The kind of broad that ain’t a broad,” Zello responded from the door, the glint in his eyes downright sinister. “The kind of broad that kicked the snot out of Russell in the ring last night, and is coming lookin’ for Cap bright and early this mornin’.” 

Every eye in the room was suddenly on him, and Sid held back a wince when his boots clattered to the floor in the silence. Some of the men looked uncomfortable, some looked intrigued, but most just look like they wanted to keep taking the mickey out of him as long as they could. Which wouldn’t be much longer, if Sid had anything to say about it.

“Zello, don’t you have a shower to take? I heard them flower girls Dupsies been after had eyes for what they could see of you through all that muck.” At the mention of Duper’s latest romantic pursuit, the tension in the room broke as everyone found a new avenue for their teasing energy. Duper blushed deeply and began to deny any such infatuation, and Zello snuck a surreptitious sniff of his armpits before walking a little too casually back to the washroom. Sidney slammed his coffee cup upside down on the wooden table and grabbed Flower’s still full mug right out from under him on the way out of the room. He blew on it to cool it off as he made his way down the short hallway and into a day just beginning to turn its wheels.

Geno was waiting for him on the porch, leaning up against the same post he’d used last night, his arms crossed again and his brown vest stretched tightly across his chest. It looked to be a size too small, and well worn in all the right places.

“Morning,” Sid says, stepping up next to Geno and taking an obnoxiously deep breath. The man opened up one bleary eye and raised an eyebrow.

“доброе утро,” the man replies. Sid shivers, unsure if there it’s the chill in the air or the sound of familiar consonants woven into new sounds that he still hasn’t gotten used to. Sid holds out the cup of coffee, waving it under Geno’s nose, and Geno’s eyes popped open. He held out his hands and waggled his fingers in the universal sign for “give me” and Sid chuckled, sliding the mug’s handle around to face Geno.

Geno took the mug an upended in it one long drink that was certainly hotter than it should have been for how quickly he drank it. But the low, satisfied hum that came out of Geno was the kind of sound Sid wanted to get on phonograph so he could listen to it over and over again. When Geno had drained the coffee down to its dregs, he looked at Sid with a sincerity that made Sid nervous.

“Confession.” He said, dipping his cheeks and staring at Sid from beneath his long eyelashes. If some of the other newsies weren’t so young, Sid might have taken the look for flirting. As it was, he was able to recognize an apology when he saw it coming. 

“Yes…”

“Yesterday, Sid teach Geno English. But Geno not need teaching from Sid. Don’t be mad?”

Sid wanted to dig through the middle of the Earth, all the way to the other side where he would never have to risk seeing Geno’s ernest face again. He tried to remember all the things he’d babbled over the course of their post-apple conversations, but the more he tried the more he thought he might actually die of blushing.

“I, um, okay. Why did you pretend? Why did you let me embarrass myself?”

“No embarrassed, Sid. After fight, Sid so excited, and Geno going to tell but then Sid want to buy apples, can’t stop talking, and Geno just like to listen. So I say nothing, and then Sid think I can’t say anything so tries to help. Sid adorable when trying to help.” Sid’s cheeks flamed again and he shoved his hands further into his pockets. Geno took a step away from the post and held a hand out to Sid before letting it fall and putting his own hands in his pockets. The two men stood there, mirror images of each others’ physicality, and Geno looked deflated. “Sorry, Sid. Many years in America, not many friends. Sid seemed like...maybe you be friend?

Sid chewed on his bottom lip, mulling it over. He hadn’t known Geno long, and he did feel just a little bit like a fool. But Geno had called him adorable, and all Sid had tried to do was help, after all. With a small, resolute shake of his head, Sid clapped Geno on the shoulder and pulled the brim of his hat a little further down. “Of course friends, Geno. This will make everything so much easier! But - no more lying, okay? From here on out?”

Geno nodded. “No more lying. Geno and Sid best friends, best friends tell truth always.”

Sid laughed. They may not be best friends yet, but there was something about Geno that made the ‘always’ part incredibly, incredibly believable. “Well, come on then. I’ve got papes to sell, and if I don’t beat it to Weasel’s fast then Flower and Dupsie will snag all the good headlines before I get there.” He tried to sling an arm around Geno’s shoulders, but was a couple of inches too short and settled for looping an arm around his stomach instead and waving his arm in front of him, as if he were introducing Geno to the city for the very first time. “Geno, my friend, welcome to the world of being New York’s best newsie!”

*

Sid didn’t get the chance to show Geno much of anything, when it came to his superb pape-slinging skills. No one did, in fact. 

It’s funny, but you never really know that the day that will change everything is happening until it’s already too late.

When Sid and Geno walked through the gate at Mr. Weisel’s Distribution Center, the other newsies were practically frothing at the mouth with rage.

“Can you believe this?!” Lettle the Kettle - Krist Letang, named for the one and only ‘weapon’ he’d used once when he knocked out a soaker in a fight - screeched at Sid the moment he crossed the threshold and started fishing half dollars out of his pocket. “Ten cents a hundred, Cap! They raised the price of the papes from fifty to sixty cents - this is gonna ruin me! How am I gonna get Catherine to marry me now?”

“It’s bad enough Weasel makes us eat what we don’t sell,” Hagey muttered from where he was perched on a precarious stack of wooden crates. 

“How can they just do this to us,” Dupsie asked?

“They can do whatever they want - they’ve got the money. It’s their paper,” Lettle the Kettle fumed. 

Sid looked around the yard at his team of newsies, a bunch of practically-kids who didn’t want anything more than to sell their papes, save their money, maybe find a bit of fun, or love, or a better place to live than the boarding house Mario Lemieux ran for them. And all of a sudden the world had shifted on them, and this group of guys used to battling it out for every point they could manage in life’s game, were left scrambling. The world didn’t care about them, and now The World didn’t care about them either. But Sid still cared. 

“They can’t just do that,” Sid said quietly under his breath.

“Can do what want. Have money, have power,” Geno answered him from just over his left shoulder. Sid hadn’t thought anyone heard him. He’d thought wrong.

“Well, they may have the money and the power and the papers, but we’ve got the feet, right? We’ve got the voices, the arms, the brains that manage to trick a whole city into paying for the news every day.” His voice had continued to grow in volume as he spoke, until everyone in the courtyard was looking at him and rousting off the occasional cheer. 

“So what are you gonna do about it, Cap?” Dupsie asked.

Sid gulped. It was easy to talk to these guys. But the guys in front of him couldn’t do anything to fix the problem. He was gonna have to go talk to someone who could.

“I think it’s time to go pay Mr. Pulitzer a visit."


	4. One for All and All for One

Sid really needed to learn not to let his mouth get him into trouble. No sooner had he announced that he was going to march right into Pulitzer’s office and give the old man a piece of his mind than the bottom dropped out of his stomach and his brain caught up with him.

“What you say?” Geno asked, his arms crossed as stood next to Sid staring up at the imposing brick facade of The World’s downtown office. 

“I dunno yet. I haven’t gotten that far.”

Geno just nodded. “You say good. Sid best newsie.”

Sid blushed and then immediately felt tingly and a little sweaty, but not in the good way. He was a great newsie, but being a great newsie and being the kind of guy who could march into that building and demand things change for him - well, those weren’t necessarily the same type of guy. He swallowed thickly. 

“Yeah,” he muttered under his breath.He rocked back and forth on his heels, like he was working up the momentum to take the first step. The third time, he felt a pressure at the small of his back, and he was propelled forward.

“Go, talk to boss man. I be here,” Geno said, his voice quiet but reassuring. Sid nodded, took a deep breath, and opened the door to the building.

**

Geno hadn’t even had enough time to get bored of waiting before Sid was back, a man in a black suit gripping him firmly by the arm and tossing him bodily out of the door. Sid hit the dirt but popped back onto his feet defiantly.

“Yeah, well, you tell old man Pulitzer that by the time I’m done he’s gonna need an appointment to see me!” Sid yelled at the closed door. Geno’s smile was wry as he watched Sid pick up his hat and brush the grime off of his delightful backside.

“Go well?” Geno asked, his voice playful. But he didn’t feel much like playing when Sid wheeled on him, fire in his eyes and rage physically radiating off of his body.

“No. It didn’t.” Sid spat over his shoulder. “Some stupid gal gets all hoity-toity and tells me I can’t see Pulitzer without an appointment, no one sees Mr. Pulitzer without an appointment. And then she tells me Mr. Pulitzer ain’t got time in his appointment book for the likes of me, and that goon of hers picks me up and tosses me. Right in the street! Like I ain’t a God damned American.”

“Sid from Canada?”

“Not the point, Geno!” Sid threw up his hands, flabbergasted. 

“What is point, Sid?” Geno asked gently. The contrast between Geno’s calm and Sid’s own manic energy brought Sid to a halt. 

“I promised the guys I’d talk to the old man, and I didn’t even get the chance to set eyes on him.” Geno watched as Sid visibly deflated. He shoved his hands in his pockets and kicked at a chunk of dirt in the street.

“Try again?”

“And say what? No one up there is ever gonna talk to the likes of someone like me.”

“Make them talk. Make them listen.”

“How?”

Geno shrugged. Sid wasn’t sure if it was a loss for the right words, or if Geno really didn’t know. Sid felt the gears in his brain start to turn. This was the kind of story that sold papes like candy - big crushes little, all to make a buck. Fat cats get fatter while Joes on the street get ground deeper into the dirt. But this wasn’t a newspaper story, and those headlines usually didn’t end well for the little guy.

“I don’t know. But I gotta go see the guys anyway.” He exhaled loudly and shook out his arms, psyching himself up to deliver bad news. “Come with me?” He glanced at Geno out of the corner of his eye. He hoped it wasn’t obvious how high his hopes were. Geno just shrugged and smiled. 

“Where else I go?”

Sid clapped a hand around the back of his neck and smiled gratefully. “Alright, then.” And, with fingers still resting gently on the pulse point below Geno’s ear, the two of them walked off the way they’d come.

**

“So what do we do here, Cap?”

“What we gotta do, Flower - hit them bricks, sell more papes, keep food in our bellies,” Dupsie said from beside him, his voice rough and anger simmering just below the surface.

“But…” Flower looked from Duper to Sid and back to Duper, his mouth hanging open slightly like he couldn’t believe that was really his only choice.

“What else are we gonna do,” Lettle the Kettle piped up from the corner, striking a match and holding it with a shaking hand to his freshly rolled cigarette. 

Sid felt sick. He looked at the boys and men around him, their faces masks of disappointment, anger, and underneath it all, fear. Sid hated seeing his friends - his family - feeling like nothing. They weren’t nothing, they were a whole big group of somethings to Sid, and he felt the sickness in his anger turn the corner to bliding, boiling rage. A group of rich old men were putting his family in danger, threatening every last inch they’d worked so hard to scrape up. And when Taylor’s face flashed in his mind, backlit by the sun off a Nova Scotia sea that still knew only from a postcard, his fist slammed on the table into the dreary silence.

Heads shot up and stared at Sid. He’d been the captain longer than some of them could remember, and they’d never seen him this angry. Not even when a group of soakers had gone after Dupsie and left him pretty bad off. “They can’t do this. We won’t let them do this.”

“What do you wanna do, Cap? We already tried talkin’, and I don’t think soaking Pulitzer is gonna work out in the newsies favor,” Flower said. 

Sid rubbed a hand along his chin and felt the beginnings of a plan pull themselves together. “We can’t fight ‘em, Flower. You’re right. Not with fists. But maybe...maybe we can fight in a different way.”

“What do you mean,” Hagey asked. Sid stood and began to pace. 

“I mean...remember what I said earlier about how we’ve got the feet and brains and mouths selling all these papers? Well, what if we didn’t do that anymore.”

Silence. Nervous glances. Sid kept talking. 

“What if we didn’t let them take advantage of all our hard work, and hit ‘em right in the wallets?”

“Don’t work, don’t eat.” Geno said from behind him. Sid turned and his eyebrows shot up. Geno had a point, but Sid thought Geno was on his side. Sid huffed.

“Yeah, I know that. But what if it wasn’t just us? What if no one sold their stupid papes? Pulitzer ain’t gonna make a dime if newsies up and down the city don’t sell for him anymore.”

“We can’t do that, Cap. You’ve seen the trolley strikers. I ain’t up to getting soaked, after what happened to Dupsie, and last I checked there isn’t a union for newsies.”

“But if we all do it together, ain’t we a union?” Flower looked at Sid, hopeful. Sid nodded.

“Exactly, Flower. We’re the newsboy union.”

A murmur went around the table as Sid’s idea began to sink in. It felt impossible, to look at the top of the mountain and think you can bring it down to where you’re standing. But Sid had never once steered them wrong.

“So...we’re a union. Okay. Now what,” Lettle caught Sid’s eye and stared at him, hard. Whatever the man was thinking, it was clear to Sid that he wasn’t in the mood to be jerked around. Lettle had goals and dreams, too - they all did - and asking them to take this risk wasn’t easy for Sid. But he had that feeling. That on the corner with a hot headline feeling that meant he was onto something.

“Now we make it stick,” he said, more confidant than he felt. He stared at Lettle in kind until the other man gave one brief nod and looked away. Sid looked at each of the other men around the table in turn, until they either nodded back or looked away. He hadn’t convinved all of them, but he’d sold it enough to start.

“Flower and Dupsie, go see Medda. See if maybe she can spread the word to some of the flower girls, get them to help get word to everyone. Lettle, you go uptown; Hagey, you go down.”

Sid felt like he needed hand in, like he needed each of them to go palm to palm so he knew they were the same team they usually were. But there wasn’t time, not if he wanted to get as many newsies as possible on the take in a way that would actually get Pulitzer’s attention. Instead, he shoved his hands in his pockets and grinned at them all. “One for all…”

“...and all for one,” the men returned. Sid’s grin brightened by half a watt. Other newsies thought it was dumb, but he didn’t care. He loved his boys’ call and response. As the men scattered, seeming more on solid ground now that they had a specific task to complete. On his way out, Hagey pulled his hat a bit further down and stepped up next to Sid. 

Under his breath, he said, “You know, if you want all the newsies on board, there’s only one person you need to talk to.”

Sid nodded. “I know. That’s where my new friend Geno comes in.” Sid cast a sideways glance at Geno, who was clearly following the conversation but didn’t seem surprised that Sid was about to ask him a favor. Hagey just looked at Sid, bemused, and waited for him to continue.

Instead, Sid turned and looked at Geno.  
“Geno, there’s one guy in Brooklyn who can help us more than anyone else. And the kicker is, he’s one of yours.”

“One of mine?”

“Yeah, he’s from Russia, too.”

“Ah.” Geno nodded. “In Brooklyn? Big man?” 

Sid nodded.

Geno chuckled and rocked back on his heels. “Okay, Sid. We go see Ovechkin.”


	5. Space and Fresh Air

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Parent teacher conferences attended AND hosted, a round of stomach flu, two round of sinus infection, and a flea problem has resulted in this purely fluffy chapter.

“Zhenya! Sidney! What brings you to Brooklyn?” Alexander Ovechkin wiped his greasy hands on a blackened piece of cloth before shoving it in his back pocket and holding out his hand for a shake. He shook Sid’s hand first, then Geno’s, and the smile on Geno’s face was happy, if also a bit tired.

“Hello, Sasha. How Nastya?”

“Good, good…” Geno’s hand was still gripped in his as Sid watched them have a silent conversation he had no hope of understanding. “Why you here, Zhenya?” Ovechkin asked quietly, the smile still on his face but an icy edge in his voice. Geno just gestured at Sid with his head.

“He’s here because of me, Ovie. We need to talk.”

Ovechkin finally dropped Geno’s hand and crossed his arms, turning his intense stare on Sidney. “So talk.”

“You know about the price hike on papes?” Ovechkin nodded, his eyes darting back and forth between Sid and Geno.

“We hear.”

“Yeah, well, Manhattan’s gonna do something about it.”

Ovechkin snorted. “Do something. Okay, Squid.”

Sid felt his shoulders tense. He tried to shake it off. He’d always hated that nickname, and none of the Manhattan newsies called him that more than once, but Ovechkin had started it. Ages ago, when Sidney had stepped off the boat from Canada and taken so long to get over his sea legs that the first newsie he’d met - Alexander Ovechkin, slinging headlines down at the docks - had asked him if he wasn’t a squid, meant for the ocean instead. 

“I’m serious, Ovie. I’ve got the guys makin’ the rounds, and I’m talking to Medda too, see if the flower girls can help spread the word.”

“What word? What you do? Soak ‘em?”

Sid shook his head. “We’re not using our fists. We’re using our heads.” That got Sid another snort, and Geno flexed his fingers menacingly. Sid caught the movement out of the corner of his eyes and amended his statement. “We’re not using just our fists. I’m serious, Ovechkin. We’re doing this for real, but it ain’t gonna all do it together. Waddaya say?”

Alexander Ovechkin’s dark eyes surveyed Sid, raking over his body from head to toe in a way that gave Sid the cold shivers. He noticed that Ovechkin didn’t bother looking at Geno again, a fact that seemed to make Geno more tense, not less. After a few beats too long, Sid shoved his hands in his pockets, his brain already moving to the next step - the step they’d need to take without Ovie.

“I say that what you say is what I say,” Ovie said at last, his voice quiet and deceptively gentle. There was fire in his eyes. “No one robs Brooklyn gets off easy.” He spit into his hand and held it out to Sid. Sid grinned and did the same, feeling something solid settle in his chest at the wet, heavy sound of his palm slapping Ovie’s. 

“Okay, so we doing this,” Geno muttered from behind them, and Sid felt a bit of a cloud tamping down on his silver lining. He shook his head and clapped a hand on Geno’s shoulders.

“We’re doing it alright. But since we’re all the way out here, there’s something else we gotta do first.” Sid bid goodbye to Ovie, giving him directions for the next day, when their plan would begin in earnest. “Come on, Geno. One more stop.”

Sid practically skipped off down the block as Geno followed behind him, hands still in his pocket and the hint of a grin barely skating at the corners of his mouth.

 

***

The wind that blew through the streets grew sharper and colder as the sun set, and the two men strolled down the street, close enough that occasionally their shoulders bumped. It was only a few more blocks, but they'd been walking for so long, Sid wasn't sure their destination was going to be what Geno had in mind after all. 

After visiting Ovie, Sid had taken Geno on a tour of Brooklyn, a whirlwind of stops at his favorite sandwich shops, soda fountains, and even another apple cart - although, this time, Sid let Geno pay for their produce. There was only one more thing that he wanted to show Geno, and he hoped against hope that it would all still be there, where he left it last year

There was a small copse of trees just off the end of the block, and Sid glanced nervously over each shoulder as he pulled Geno from the street into the treeline. It wasn't that he was worried, per se, but this was his spot and he wasn't eager to give it up any time soon. 

"Sid, where we going?" His voice sounded tired, the gently bemused tone he'd been using all day finally wearing thin.

"Last stop, Geno, I promise. This was Taylor and my's favorite spot before she left. Haven't been out here since," he said quietly, navigating them through the trees as they grew more and more dense. Until, there weren't any more trees and there it was. The tiny pond, just as Sid remembered it, with the beaver dam built on the north bank and a copse of beech trees to the east. He huffed out a breath of contentment and cast a glance at Geno. Geno's face was wary, but there was a delighted glint in his eyes that Sid could only hope was about to get bigger.

"Lot of work to kill me, bury body," Geno joked, and Sid's giggle rang out loud through the clearing, scaring a single bird off his perch. 

Sid shook his head and dropped Geno's hand to walk around the bank, taking slow dragging steps until Geno heard the hollow thud of wood and Sid bent down excitedly. When he stood again, his grin was bigger than any Geno had ever seen and in his hands were a jumble of wood, metal, and leather.

"Skates!" Geno said happily, his deep chuckle chasing Sid's continuing laughter through the chilly air. Geno stopped suddenly, his face falling. "But, Sid..." and he gestured to the pond behind him. The air was chilly, without a doubt, but the water in the pond was still most definitely water. Sid followed his finger and shrugged.

"Well, yeah. We're not gonna use them now. I just wanted to make sure they were still here. And to, you know, show you this place," he said, much more quietly, after a beat. 

Geno nodded and walked the bank next to Sid. He sat down and stretched out his long legs as he watched Sid take a quick inventory of the skates and, to Geno's delight, hockey sticks that Sid had hidden in his miniature underground cellar. As Sid continued to fuss and arrange, Geno let his attention wander, first to the myriad of fall colors that swirled around him in the fallen leaves, and then to a family of deer who had stepped out on the opposite bank to get a drink.

"Sid," Geno whispered, pointing, and Sid immediately stopped what he was doing and sank to the ground next to Geno. Both of them held their breath as buck, doe, and then fawns took their turn drinking and grazing at the bank of the pond. 

"Beautiful," Sid said, his voice low so that it wouldn't carry across the water and spook the deer.

Geno turned and watched Sid watching the deer. "Beautiful," he said, his voice husky and catching a bit on the last syllable. There was something about the way Geno rolled the word around his tongue that made Sid flush. Sid looked away from the deer and into Geno's eyes, remembering the last time the man had echoed his words back to him. 

"Geno," he whispered, and his voice trailed off as he felt long, warm fingers cover his on the ground and a puff of dry, warm air on his cheek before soft lips met his. 

There were few enough moments in his life that Sid felt something vital and necessary click within him. When Taylor had been born, at the darkest part of the night when the stars were at their brightest. The first time he'd held a hot-off-the-press pape, the newsprint so fresh it left his hands black as tar. 

And right now, in this small clearing in the middle of Brooklyn, Geno's lips pressed around him and the crushing purple of twilight making things go fuzzy at the edges. 

Sid leaned forward and pressed his other hand into Geno's chest, the tips of his fingers sliding through the buttons on the too-small vest to the rough texture of homespun beneath. He curled his fingers slightly, gripping, as if he could pull all the heat and heady breathlessness right out of Geno. Geno lifted his other hand and wrapped it around the back of Sid's neck, his fingers long enough that he began to play idly with Sid's earlobe as his lips began to wander down the side of Sid's neck. He found that smooth spot on the underside of Sid's jaw and sucked lightly, smiling against the heated skin as Sid hissed. 

"Ah, Geno," and Geno muttered a word into Sid's neck. "Wait, what?"

"Zhenya," Geno repeated, a little quieter this time. Like Sid wasn't supposed to hear him the first time, like Geno was embarrassed to be caught out. "Call me Zhenya. Is name for...close friends."

Sid giggled again. If he wasn't careful, he'd be making a habit of it. "Close friends, huh," he teased as his hands continued to wander. They hadn't stopped from the moment his lips and met Geno's - Zhenya's - and Sid was pleased to find Zhenya's hands doing a bit of exploring of their own. Long fingers brushed Sid's hips, his lower back, the place where his suspenders met his pants where his shirt had come untucked. 

"Closest friends," Zhenya amended, his eyes playful as he ducked his head back in again for a kiss, running his tongue lightly along Sid's lower lip before catching the corner and biting down, gently. Sid couldn't hold back the little hum of pleasure. His fingers brushed down, a feather touch over the button's of Zhenya's pants. He felt Zhenya stir beneath him, a quick pulse of promises hot, heavy, heady. Sid swallowed, but felt his mouth had gone dry. Zhenya stared back at him, his grin predatory, the fingers of one hand still wrapped around Sid's neck, nestled in his dark, thick curls. He pulled slightly, tipping Sid's head back enough that he was able to place another slow, wet kiss to Sidney's neck, right over the spot where Zhenya could feel his pulse. Sid closed his eyes and sighed, a small, happy sound, and opened his mouth readily when Zhenya kissed him again, this time a bit rougher. 

Sid barely restrained himself from letting out a whimper when suddenly Zhenya wasn't there anymore, but before he could fully formulate the thought, Zhenya was back, straddling Sid's thighs and holding him by the collar, the fabric of his shirt bunched in Zhenya's fists. He was heavy, big, and Sid felt small and protected - something he rarely had the chance to feel, both because he wasn't exactly a small guy himself, and because he was Cap. No one took care of the captain, he was too busy taking care of everyone else.

"Mmm, take such good care," Zhenya said between kisses, as if he could read Sid's mind. Sid moaned slightly and leaned into Zhenya, gave back to those hungry, insistent kisses. He wrapped his arms around Zheny's too-thin torso and gripped his ass, two indecent handfuls that earned Sid a grunt of his own and Zhenya ground down on top of him, the friction against his own growing erection driving him crazy.

"Fuck, Zhenya, yes," Sid said, his voice low and rough. Zhenya just laughed quietly. There was a promise in that laugh.

At that moment, a shrill rang burst through the air, making both boys jump as Zhenya rolled off Sid's lap. It took Sid a moment to get enough blood back to his brain, but he realized quickly what he was hearing.

"Trolley strike," he said ominously. They'd been hearing the bells for municipal police and fire too much in Manhattan to mistake the sound for anything else. "Police are on their way." Zhenya nodded, the moment between them shifting from something pressing to something lingering, the heat between them gone but a kind of sweet ache settling into Sid's chest just behind his ribcage. 

"We need go," Zhenya said, reluctant. He stood, pulling his vest straight and holding a hand out to Sid. Sid just looked up at him, a puppy dog being told the big juicy steak was not, in fact, for him. 

"But - why?" Sid whined, even as he slipped his hand into Zhenya's and stood up. The momentum pulled him forward into the hard planes of Zhenya's chest, and Sid didn't want to leave.

"Promised Hagey have you home safe. Flower, too. Dupsie. Lettle." His voice trailed off and he quirked an eyebrow at Sid. 

He'd done no such thing, but the point was pretty clear. The sun had already sunk below the horizon, the temperature was dropping rapidly, and he was already due for more chirping than he'd be able to handle. Someone was gonna be cruising for a bruising by the time the night was over.   
"Come on, Captain. Walk you home," Zhenya said, his cold hand wrapping around Sid's and pulling him gently to the woods. 

Sid smiled and decided not to remind Zhenya that, technically speaking, he had no idea where they were going.


	6. You Don't Need Money When Ya Famous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sid is a Nervous Nellie, Geno is a Calm Catherine, and neither one of them can keep their hands to themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, friends! 
> 
> Let's say goodbye for ever to the shitshow of 2017 and really kick the shit out of this next one, yeah?

“So you’re saying we have nothing.”

“No. I’m saying we’ve got everything. Just...not until Brooklyn shows up.”

Sid hung his heads in hands and tried to find the right words to make the other guys’ understand. Each of them had returned with the same news: all the other newsies in the city would show up and stand with them - when Brooklyn did. Which, as Sid was trying to explain, Brooklyn would. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure when, and they weren’t going to be seeing anybody until they did. Which left them, for all practical purposes, by themselves. He could feel the nervous energy pass among the guys, all assembled in the big storage room at the back of the newsie house. 

“We just need to stand until Ovechkin shows up.”

“If Ovechkin shows up,” Lettle grumbled darkly. The tone of his voice made it clear exactly what he thought the odds of that would be. Whatever had happened between the Kettle and Ovechkin in the past, Sid didn’t know the details. But Lettle didn’t trust the guy, and it wasn’t making Sid feel any better about the situation. All the confidence he’d felt earlier that afternoon began to slip away. 

“Ovechkin will come,” Geno said beside him. His voice was low, but steady. He hadn’t said much since they’d arrived back at the newsie house. He’d been content, mostly, to sit in the background and drink mug after mug of continuously cooler coffee. Occasionally, when the bulk of attention was elsewhere, he’d reach out and run a finger casually along the outside of Sid’s wrist, or gently press his knee to the outside of Sid’s thigh with a gentle, aching pressure. Sid knew that Geno wasn’t the most comfortable speaking English, let alone in front of a gathered crowd of rowdy guys, but he was speaking up for Sid and something inside the captain’s chest tightened. Sid took a deep breath and nodded.

“Yeah. Ovechkin will come. And when he does, he’s gonna find us ready. Right?” The rest of the newsies passed a glance around, casting invisible lots to see who would be the first to speak - or not. 

“Right,” Dupsie said from somewhere near the back. He’d always had Sid’s back, but he’d never sounded so nervous before. 

“Right,” Lettle added begrudgingly. 

“Alright then, everyone. Let’s just get some sleep. What’s going to happen will happen. Let’s just remember why we’re doing this, alright.” Sid did his best to catch each person’s eye, willing them to keep the faith. “Remember that Pulitzer doesn’t get to go pushing us around like we’re nothing, and that tomorrow is the last time they treating like the dirt on the bottom of their shoe. They may own the World. But they don’t own us.” He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he felt the energy in the room shift, ever so slightly. It never hurt to remind people what it was they were fighting for when the going was about to get tough. 

Sid stood, and the tension in the crowd broke. The rest of the guys stood and wandered off in twos and threes, some to the showers, some back towards the bunks, and a lucky one or two out the side door to see another lucky so and so. It was out this door that Sid slipped, Geno close behind him. Even if no one had minded, there wasn’t any room left at the inn - and a small part of him didn’t want to know what the answer would be if he asked Geno to stay. Instead, the two walked a few blocks down to where Geno had to turn, a comfortable silence settling between them as their breath began to cloud the air in front of them. It was too cold to stay out long, but neither of them seemed in a rush to get home. 

“So...I’ll see you tomorrow?” Sid asked as they reached the corner.

“Wouldn’t miss it, Sid,” Geno replied, his voice soft but resolute. It was a tone of voice that dared God himself to keep him away.

“I’m scared,” Sid said quietly. He didn’t want to admit it, didn’t want to give voice to that one small, dark part of this whole plan. He didn’t want to give it breath, give it light or space or room to grow. But so far, Geno had taken every dark and secret part that Sid had handed him and turned on the light. It made Sid feel warm all over, thinking about it. 

“I know,” Geno said simply, slipping a hand out of his pockets to rub a small and gentle circle on Sid’s lower back. “But Oveckin be there. I know.”

“How? How do you know? Even Ovechkin rarely knows what he’s going to do the next day.”

“I know because if he don’t come, I find him and bring him myself.” There was that voice again, the one that brooked no argument. Without warning, Sid chuckled. 

“You know, hearing that, I wouldn’t want to be Ovie tomorrow if I had plans to go elsewhere.”

“It will work, Sid. Trust me. I know.” He caught and held Sid’s eyes, a source of knowledge there that Sid knew he didn’t understand. It was like looking at a book in a different language, knowing it taught something but only being able to guess at what. 

“How?” he said again, his voice barely above a whisper. 

The corners of Geno’s mouth tilted up and he crooked a finger at Sid. Although there wasn’t much space left between them, Sid took a step forward and filled it. Geno leaned forward, preparing to whisper in Sid’s ear, and at the last second turned his head and gently pressed a kiss to Sid’s jaw, a warm pass of lips and tongue and teeth over his pulse point, and when Sid heard the rough pass of stubble over his own days’ worth of growth, he shivered. Geno stood straight, put his hands in his pockets, and winked. “See you tomorrow, Sid.”

Sid beamed. “See you, Zhenya.”

Sid still didn’t know what was going to happen. But he suddenly felt like maybe it didn’t matter quite as much, that they’d be okay in the long run anyway. 

**

Sid really, really should have slept. The sun rose the next morning bright, and promising, but Sid felt like he had ants under his skin and sand in his eyes. Everything in his body hurt, but his mind was racing and he was ready to be on the other side of the day. 

He pulled himself out of bed and shrugged into his second shirt, the one he didn’t wear nearly as often. If there was any day to dress to impress, this sure felt like the one. He walked to the kitchen in a daze, his pre-coffee cup of coffee barely registering as he gulped it down and said good morning to the other early risers - Flower sat in the corner, yesterday’s paper visible beneath a pile of tobacco and paper shreds, a slowly growing pile of cigarettes stacked neatly by his elbow. He smiled at Sid and raised an eyebrow.

“Figured if Brooklyn really does show, we’re all gonna need one to celebrate. And if they don’t, we’ll probably need one anyway. For wound-tendin’ purposes.”

“They’re gonna come, Flower. I know it, and Geno knows it. It’s gonna be okay.”

“You really believe him, huh,” Flower asked, clearly trying to be casual as he licked and sealed another cigarette, setting it down gently on top of the pile. “The Rouski? When he says Ovechkin’ll be there?”

“Yeah, Flower. I really do. There’s something between them - and no, don’t ask, I don’t know what and I don’t want you or Dupsie asking - from the homeland, and whatever it is, Geno came out on top. So yeah, I may not know him super well, but when he says he knows this is gonna happen, I believe him.”

Flower nodded and was silent for a second, picking up the smoke he’d just rolled and striking a match with his thumbnail. He inhaled deeply and smacked the table, making Sid jump. “I do, too, Cap. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t just putting us on last night, trying to shine on that silver lining. But I gotta ask, if you’s so sure about Geno, how come you didn’t sleep last night  _ and  _ you’re up at the Devil’s side of sunrise?”

“You noticed that, huh?”

“In a room full of guys who sleep like the dead, yeah, I noticed every time you turned your ample arse over on that creaky wood.”

Sid cringed. “Sorry about that.” Flower waved off his apologies.

“Don’t worry about it, Captain. Figured you had a lot on your mind, and it’s not like we gotta get up to sell papes today.” The resentment in Flower’s voice set Sid’s teeth on edge, and was the exact kick in the pants he needed. 

“Well, maybe not Flower, but we still got an appointment to keep with ole’ Mr. Pulitzer, so do me a favor, will ya, and roust the rest of ‘em?”

Flower’s face lit up. The man may have been well into his twenties, but he wouldn’t ever stop being The Little Brother and taking infinite delight in waking up the rest of the house. Taking care to scoop his rolled cigarettes into their case, he pulled on his cap and grinned. “With pleasure, sir!”

Sid set his first foot outside when he heard Flower yell behind him, “FIRE, FIRE, FIRE ON THE LEVEL look out boys or Flowers dousing everyone from head to toe in order to SAVE LIVES” as he banged and rattled the various bed frames around the bunk room. By the time Sid had gotten his second foot out the door, he heard the unmistakable sound of someone’s shoe hitting Flower square in the gut. Anything after that, however, was thankfully muted behind the thick wood of the front door, and Sid basked in the sudden quiet of the morning. The entire world was gilt at the edges and the warmth of his coffee cup seemed to seep into the deepest part of him.

Then again, that may have had more to do with the tall, lanky man sitting on the front steps, his long legs pulled up, his knees almost to his ears, anxiously folding and unfolding a scrap of paper in his long fingers. 

“Zhenya!” Sid didn’t even try to keep the surprise and joy out of his voice. He’d known Geno was coming, but was getting far too used to seeing him alongside his morning coffee.

“Sid!” It wasn’t anything Sid needed to worry about, if the size of the grin threatening to break Geno’s face was any indication. “Good morning! Here, brought this for you.” Geno held out the small piece of paper, having refolded it into a tiny square no bigger than a playing card. 

The paper was soft and greying, so fragile along the fold lines that it was clear the thing had been folded and unfolded, taken in and out of pockets, run through human hands enough times to be worn as soft as cotton. Carefully, reverently, Sid unfolded it. 

The print was large, bold, and greying. It was the inside page of a newspaper, Sid had no doubt about that. However, the words seemed to swim in front of Sid’s eyes. The most definitely weren’t English. Geno had given him an old, well loved page from a Cryllic newspaper, and Sid had no idea why.

“Thank you,” he said, with equal parts sincerity and confusion. Geno’s smile grew, impossibly, even wider.

“Can read it?” Sid laughed and shook his head, his shoulders shrugging gently.

“Not even a little. But it means a lot to you, clearly, and you gave it to me. You say thank you when you get a gift.”

“Is newspaper. Will bring you luck today.”

“A newspaper about what? Why this pape? What’s so lucky about it?”

“I tell tonight. After we win today.”

Sid felt a golden bolt of reassurance surge through him. Not that he didn’t have at least fifty reasons in the house to fight Pulitzer for. But this extra prize made him damn near eager to do it. 

“Right. Okay. Tonight, then. Speaking of, I guess we should go back inside. Flower’s probably done waking everyone up and getting the tar kicked out of him for it, so I’d guess it’s the perfect time for coffee.”

“Always time for coffee.”

Sid turned and started to walk back inside, but was pulled off balance when Geno gripped him by the shoulder, turned him suddenly, and planted a quick kiss on his cheek. Sid looked at Geno, eyes wide in surprise.

“What was that for?!”

“You say thank you when you get gift. Today going to be great gift, Sid. Greatest gift.”

Sid blushed so hard he felt it in his toes. 

**

With all of them gathered in the square, shoulder to shoulder in front of Weasle’s, Sid finally felt like it was all going to work out. When the third striker crossed their makeshift picket line, he  **knew** it was going to. But it wasn’t until the deep voice of Alexander Ovechkin rang out behind him, filling the small alcove with “Never fear, Brooklyn here!” that he was able to relax into the success, to begin to feel that ebullient joy suffuse his bones. It wasn’t like letting out a breath; it was like regaining feeling in frozen fingers. Warm, delicious, almost painfully relieving. Geno’s presence next to him, a solid weight and fierce silence, remained steady as the crowd of newsies ebbed and flowed around him. His expression had been the same through the whole of the standoff - focused, cold. Dangerous. He hadn’t said a word, but his attitude had  almost scared Sid. If he didn’t know that the ferocity he saw was on his behalf, he would have been terrified.

Without a word, though, Geno’s attitude shifted when he spotted a face in the crowd. Pushing through the remaining newsies, dragging Sid behind him, he  approached a small curly headed girl that had slipped in amongst the crowd of rowdy men. She had a small pad of paper gripped tightly in one hand and she threw her arms around Geno’s neck with a delighted shriek. Geno let go of Sid to wrap his long arms all the way around her, giving her a small spin before dropping her down and planting a kiss right in the middle of her forehead, all while babbling in Russian. She babbled right back at them, and while Sid had no idea what was happening, it delighted him to be witnessing so much joy between two people. After a few  minutes of nothing but word’s he couldn’t understand, however, he cleared his throat and gently poked Geno in the hip.

Geno started with a smile, as though he’d genuinely forgotten that Sid had been standing there. He immediately tugged Sid closer by a suspender, introducing him excitedly. “Masha, this Sid. Sidney Crosby. The captain.”

“Captain, huh?” Masha repeated, eyebrow quirked, her accented English as clear as Geno’s. Sid blushed and shrugged.

“It’s what the guys call me, but I never…”

“Pah,” Geno said, bumping his shoulder into Sidney’s and waving his hand through the air in front of them. “Don’t listen to Sid. Sid best captain. He put together whole newsie strike.” Sid beamed, Geno beamed back. Masha smirked at both of them.

“So. You  _ strike  _ captain,huh?”

“Yeah. Yes. Yes, ma’am.”

“You the newsie going to take down Pulitzer?” Sid bristled slightly.

“Yeah. Not to be rude, but seeing as how you know an awful lot about Geno and now a little bit about me, can I ask who you are?”

“I’m the girl who make Sidney Crosby king of New York.”


	7. Love Will Do What it Does

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A gift is a gift is a gift.
> 
> Or: What happens when the newsies house just happens to be empty of all the other newsies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please forgive my shitty google translated Russian, as well as my many liberties with the 1899 university uprising. 
> 
> At least there's a blowjob to make it better?

It was deeply ironic to Sid that for a bunch of newsies, they couldn’t seem to track down enough copies of the paper Masha wrote for. Surely it didn’t help that it was a small local paper published out of the Bronx, a mashup of local advertisements, news one-lines, and pictures of the more tawdry local tragedies, but regardless, they’d only managed to find a dozen copies to pass between them at O’Malleys, the closest pub to the newsie house and a frequent home away from home for them all. 

On the back of every three page edition, Masha got her chance to shine. The entire half of the page was hers, above the fold - this was, as she continued to explain to them over and over again, incredibly important - and she had dedicated every last word of it to them. Sid still didn’t really understand it, but after a few frustrating minutes with a very excited Masha, Geno had beers for both of them in hand and was following Sid to a table in a quieter corner of the pub.

“So Masha is a friend from Russia?”

“Best friend from Russia. Meet at university. She little sister to first…” Geno furrowed his brow like he was searching for the word. Sid gulped. 

“...housemate,” Sid offered hopefully. Geno whapped his hand on the table and smiled.

“Yes, little sister to first roommate. We live together our first year, he study music, I study metalwork. Masha, she write for school, for church, for library - always writing. That paper?” Geno gestured towards Sidney’s pants and the pockets that held Geno’s earlier gift. “She write it. My proudest day in that paper.” Geno flushed, going pink from forehead to adam’s apple. Sid slid the square from his pocket and started to unfold it, but Geno’s large hand covered his and he stopped. “Later,” he said quietly. “I read it, to you. Later. Right now, we celebrate.” He clinked his glass against Sid’s gently, the sound as joyous as church bells in the small space between them. “We celebrate Sidney Crosby, king of New York, great enemy of Joseph Pulitzer!” This last part Geno yelled at the crowd of newsies, who yelled back and raised their glasses in triumphant salute. Sid grinned, chugged his beer, and walked into the crowd of his friends, the happiest he’d been in as long as he could remember.

**

“It’s later.” Sid broke the kiss between them and panted heavily in Geno’s ear. In a miracle turn, they’d managed to time their return to the newsie house so it was completely empty. There was no telling how long that would last, though, so they’d stoked the fire, added a few more logs, and retreated into a darkened corner of the kitchen, their mouths and hands hungry for one another. 

As Sid pulled further away, Geno’s eyes widened. His long fingers continued to wander over the planes of Sidney’s chest and stomach, running lightly over his nipples before dipping down and running along the waistline of his pants. “What,” Geno asked, his voice raspy and his lips swollen pink.

“You said you’d read me that article later. The one that Masha wrote? Well, it’s later. I want to know what it says.”

“Now?!” The incredulity was clear in his voice, his eyes glassy with desire and his hands digging fingers into Sidney’s hips with ferocity. Sidney giggled. 

“Yes, now. We don’t know when the guys are going to be back, so it’s probably best to stop this now. Plus, like you said. Later.”

Geno’s sigh was the heaviest thing Sidney had ever carried, and that included bundle after bundle of freshly printed paper. A literal pout on his lips, Geno took his time buttoning his own shirt, using his time tucking it in to make sure Sidney could make out every inch of what he was giving up for a bedtime story. Licking his lips, Sidney briefly considered changing his mind. But only very, very briefly. 

Sidney left his shirt undone, standing and pulling Geno with him to his bed at the back of the bunk room. He hopped up on his bed and patted the mattress next to him. Geno climbed up next to Sid, his shoulders hunched to avoid banging his head on the ceiling. One of the main issues with being both tall, and in the top bunk. Sid tugged on the shoulder of Geno’s shirt until the tall man folded up his knees and laid down on his back, Sidney scooting down until he was resting his head on Geno’s stomach, lying between the man’s knees, arms wrapped around his waist. Geno reached down and began running his fingers through Sidney’s dark, curly hair and Sidney relaxed into the rise and fall of Geno’s chest. 

“Okay. I’m ready,” Sid said after a few minutes. “Read me my story.”

Geno chuckled and said something in Russian before he began to speak in English again, his voice low. With the heat of the fire filling the room, and Geno’s voice a heavy blanket surrounding him, Sidney felt like he was melting, drowning, coating himself in happiness. 

“June Seven, 1899. St. Petersburg. Local lawmakers come to agreement with student group, promising to hire more professors and expand student housing. Agreement settled on after long period of conflict between the student skhodka and university leadership. Many remember in February, this paper reported on arrest of sixty-eight students, including skhodka leaders Yevgeni Malkin and Alexander Ovechkin. Given the mistreatment and potential bribery of gospodin Malkin and gospodin Ovechkin, this paper thrilled to report that successful solution has been found, and students resume classes fall term.”

“You didn’t even have to read it, did you?” Sid spoke in times to the silence Geno’s story had left behind him, a solid space of curiosity and pride. He felt Geno shake his head no.

“Memorized long time ago. Have read...many times.” The way he said it, Sid knew that ‘many times’ was a bit of an understatement.

“That’s you. Yvegeni Malkin?”

Geno nodded.

“You led a student strike.”

Another nod.

“And they sent you to jail for it.”

The fear and sadness in Sid’s voice had Geno sitting up immediately. He reached forward and wiped a tear off Sid’s cheek. He was hot to the touch.

“Oh, Sid. No. Is not point…”

“It  _ is  _ the point, Geno. And I don’t know which part I hate worse. The thought that I might end up in the same spot, or the fact that someone put you there, and I’m sure they hurt you, and I didn’t even know you to be able to stop it. I can’t fix it. I...don’t like not being able to fix it.”

Sid forced the words out through clenched teeth, his muscles beginning to ache with the effort of keeping his body from shaking. Geno sat above him, Sid clutched to his waist as Geno rubbed calming circles on Sid’s back. Left shoulder blade, right shoulder blade, down across his lower back, and up along his ribs, over and over again until Sid’s body calmed and his mind began to quiet. Geno began to hum something that osunded suspiciously to Sid like a lullaby, and Sid found himself sniffling like toddler. The story Geno’d told him, his reaction to it, had taken him by surprise. On the one hand, he was so proud of Geno for what he’d done, for the things he’d managed to do for his friends and classmates in Russia. It also probably explained how and why Geno had gotten as good as he had in the boxing ring. But the idea of the police rounding Geno up, imagining the kind of dark and dirty place they must have taken him, the kind of violence that must have been done to his body and mind and most secret places. It had hurt Sid, and it had scared him. Sid didn’t know if he was able to take that kind of beating. He was the captain, but he wasn’t strong like Geno was strong. 

“It not why I gave you news, Sidney,” he whispered. “Not why at all. Is good story - we win. Ovechkin and I, we win. Just like you win tonight. I give to you because I know you can win. Boys, they look up to you. Love you. You feel them, carry them, but don’t see. Don’t see that for you?” Geno waved his hand in front of him, searching for the word. “Anything. Went to jail, and won anyway. Ovie there with me. I’m here. With you.

When we meet, we meet at fight, yes? You see me fight, you see me win. Know where I learn? After jail, I know I need more. More muscle, more strength, but not just. More patience. More…” he muttered in Russian, trying and discarding words until he found the right one. “...more wisdom. I have to teach self to see. But Sidney? You born seeing. Strength here,” he squeezed Sidney’s arms, “and here,” he dug his fingers into the meat of Sid’s shoulders and began to rub out the knots. “Easy strength. But strength here?” Fingers rubbed gently circles at his temples, “that hardest strength. Sid - you have that strength.”

Sidney looked up at him, his eyes still glassy with unshed tears. He opened his mouth to speak and closed it again, did it again, and by the third time simply clenched his jaw and nodded. There weren’t any more words. Geno had given him so many words already tonight. Sidney could put his mouth to much better use. 

Putting his head back down, he opened his mouth and exhaled heavily on Geno’s crotch. He felt the breath catch in Geno’s chest, so he did it again, turning his head to the left and nosing his head into the ‘V’ of Geno’s hip muscle. He opened his mouth and ran his tongue along the length of Geno, smiling at the feeling of rough homespun against his tongue. He felt Geno’s cock twitch beneath his mouth. He smiled. 

His hands made their way to the button on Geno’s pants, which he popped open while pressing gentle kisses to each hip bone. With an almost comical quickness, Geno pulled down his pants and his underwear along with them. He lay back down and twisted his hands through Sid’s hair, his hips lifting toward Sid as he nipped gently along Geno’s inner thighs. Geno lifted his head backwards and let out a shaky breath.

“God, Sid…” and his voice trailed off as Sid licked one long, hot stripe from Geno’s balls to the tip of his dick. Geno shuddered when he heard Sid spit into his hand, and with surprising tenderness rolled back his foreskin to place a torturously light kiss to the head. Sid’s tongue darted out, lapping up the bead of wetness he found there, before pressing firmly into the slit. Geno let forth a solid stream of low, whispered Russian as his hips thrust toward Sid. Sid took Geno deep, using his hand to make up for what his throat couldn’t take. He relaxed his throat and took Geno as deep as he could, swallowing around the thick cock in his mouth and growing hard at Geno’s answering moan.

Sid began to suck in earnest, finding a rhythm with Geno’s pulsing hips until the only sounds in the room were the messy, wet noises from Sid and the increasingly staccato breaths from Geno. Switching hands and grips, Sid gripped Geno’s cock and pulled, long and slow, as he moved his mouth to Geno’s testicles, putting first one in his mouth, then the other, then both. As he pressed his tongue into the hot piece of flesh just below Geno’s sack, Geno pulled on his hair and bucked his hips wildly. He began to pant Sid’s name over and over, tugging on his hair gently until Sid slid back up and wrapped his lips around him again, hollowing out his cheeks and sucking hard on the tip. After only a few seconds, Geno’s body went rigid and Sidney felt the fluttering tension of his stomach muscles as he came, hard and hot, in the back of Sidney’s throat.

Sidney kept sucking until Geno finished, and process that seemed to take all night while being simultaneously over all at once. After gently licking Geno clean and pulling his underwear back up, he wiggled his way up Geno’s body and settled into the crook of the tall man’s shoulder. He rested his head on Geno’s chest and listened to the slowing beat of his heart.

“Sid…” Geno kissed the top of Sid’s head before sliding a finger beneath Sid’s chin and lifting his lips to meet his. The kiss was soft, and sweet, and asking a very specific question. Sidney returned it with an answer, but not the one that Geno wanted.

“Not tonight. The boys’ll be back soon, and besides,” he brought his hands to Geno’s lips and pressed the first two fingers of his hand into Geno’s mouth. “I already took care of it.”

Geno’s eyes widened in understanding as his hand gripped Sid’s wrist firmly and sucked the two fingers more deeply into his mouth, swirling his tongue down them both, around the nail and down the seam, making Sid half hard again imagining how good that tongue would feel on other parts of his body. Sid raised his mouth to Geno’s, sliding his fingers out and his tongue in, kissing Geno with hopeful ferocity. At the same time, he placed a hand in the middle of his chest, and began to push. 

“You need to leave, Zhenya.”

“I know,” Geno said, his voice rough and cracking. “Boys back soon.”

Sid nodded. “Yep. And I need you rested. Tomorrow we seize the day.”

Geno slid off the bed and pulled his pants up at the same time, a graceful move that Sid would have never even attempted. Geno turned and kissed Sid one last time, cupping his cheek gently in one hand and running a thumb along Sid’s cheekbones.

“Sleep well,” Geno said, looking into Sidney’s eyes and chewing on his bottom lip. He leaned forward quickly and gave Sid two kisses, one on each cheek, before whispering in his ear. “ Ya vlyublyayus' v tebya , Sidney.”

Sidney didn’t speak Russian. There was no way for him to know what Geno had said. But his heart thudded heavily and he felt himself begin to sweat. He didn’t have the English words he needed to respond, so instead, he simply pressed his lips to Geno’s forehead, said goodbye again, and spent another night staring at the ceiling slats above him. 


	8. Baby That's Rich

“I’m telling you guys, I just don’t think it’s a good idea,” Dupsie sat down as the gathered crowd booed and threw napkins at his head. Sid laughed and waved his hand in the air.

  
“We hear you, Dupsie. And I get it. But now is the time to strike, ya know what I mean? Yesterday went damn near perfectly-”

  
“You welcome, Sid,” Ovechkin said from a corner, lifting his head from a table of Brooklyn newsies to gesture with his beer and smile like a cat with a fresh-caught canary.

  
“-thanks to Brooklyn,” Sid finished, annoyed. “But that’s just the first battle, and no time like the present to make the message stick.” Most of the men around him nodded, eyes gleaming with the joy of yesterday’s victory and the promise of more to come. Masha’s newspaper had run a second story on them that morning, make it the second story in as many days. They’d even made the front page, a picture of them all grinning like fools for the whole world to see. Unfortunately, Masha’s paper was the only one printing anything about them at all, and hers was the only story in the entire paper that was written in English. But it hadn’t taken more than the taste of victory to make them all a little less afraid. To make them all feel like victory was not only possible, but wasn’t even that long of a shot.

  
No one could remember who first said the word “rally". But once it’d been said, they couldn’t unhear it, and now it was the plan. The next day, with less than 36 hours gone from the first stand-off, the newsies were going to make a noise loud enough that no paper in the city could ignore them. And once The World was listening, Sid and his boys would get what they deserve - lower prices and their dignity back.

Sid sat between Lettle and Geno, the only seat in the world that could even begin to make him feel like a small person. Lettle had a small piece of paper in front of him and a stub of pencil gripped in his fingers. He was taking notes about the rally plan, and it was possibly the smartest Sid had ever seen him look. Luckily, getting a place to have it wasn’t going to be the hard part. Sid had been friends with Medda long enough that he hadn’t had to say more than ‘please'. Even when he explained how many of them there would be. Even after he explained the kind of danger she could be getting himself in. She’d simply given him a hug.

  
“Who's your shadow?” she’d whispered in her ear, jutting her chin in Geno’s direction. He stood in the wings of the theatre, absentmindedly fingering the silver fringe on the edge of the crimson curtains. Sid watched his long fingers dance among the braids and he shivered, a knot of want forming at the base of his spine.

  
“New friend,” Sid said, his voice low and gruff, his eyes unable to leave Geno.

  
Medda looked between them both and a small, knowing smile slid onto her face. “Friends, huh? Well good for you Sid. You’ve needed a...friend for a while now. Just be safe boys, and I’ll see you and the whole motley crew tomorrow.”

  
Sid kissed her on both cheeks and called Geno’s name, beckoning him to follow. Geno fell into step behind him, and Sid smiled at the comforting heat at his back.

  
Geno had been there again when Sid woke up in the morning, had shared his coffee and picked the crust of Sidney’s toast off the plate. Sidney offered him his own food, but Geno said it tasted better if it had been on Sid’s plate first. He’d followed Sid to the pub, and then to Medda’s, and then back to the pub, all the while never touching Sid on the street but always standing close enough that he could have if he’d needed to. When they sat, Geno sat near him. When the group talked, Geno tugged gently on the elbow of Sid’s shirt and whispered in his ear, his breath tickling and faint and making Sid squirm in all the best ways. Having Geno close made Sid feel safe in the same way that having Taylor close did.

  
_Careful_ , a voice in the back of Sidney’s head whispered. It was so quiet, he almost missed it among the noise and volume and chaos of the last two days for the newsies.

  
Almost.

  
_Taylor left you, and she was family. Geno doesn’t owe you anything_. It didn’t matter how many times he reassured himself that Taylor hadn’t left him. She’d gone back home, a home they’d never met and always wanted to. The heart wasn’t a creature of rationality, anyway.

  
So if he squeezed Geno’s fingers a little bit harder than he had last night, or if he stayed a little longer with his shoulders pointed in the man’s direction, no matter who was watching, Sid had to hope that the universe - and Geno - would understand.

  
“Sid... I think maybe Dupsie right,” Geno said in a lull, leaning forward and speaking low enough that even Lettle on the other side of Sid wouldn’t be able to hear him.

  
“Hmmm?” Sid was half listening, half pouring his bakers’ dozenth coffee for the day.

  
“Sid!” Geno slapped him on the shoulder and Sid yelped. He looked bruised as he passed the mug to Geno.

  
“I was gonna share.” Geno smiled, but shook his head.

  
“Sid, not about coffee. Said I think Dupsie right. Tomorrow not...maybe wait for rally, yes? See how Pulitzer respond first?”

  
“No, see, that’s the brilliant part, Geno. If we do it tomorrow, if we just keep the hits coming, Pulitzer won’t have time to respond, to lie, to try and cheat us out of all of this. If we just keep pushing, he’ll throw in the towel. I just know it.”

  
“But Sid. What about what Masha said?” Masha had visited them first thing that morning, warm copies of papes clutched in her arms, laughingly gleefully as she told them in great detail the angry call her editor had gotten from someone in Pulitzer’s office. Someone calling to tell them to back off reporting. To tell them that there wouldn't be much more to report on anyway.

“What about it,” Sid snapped, the first threads of annoyance weaving their way into his voice. He so appreciated Geno looking out for him, but Sid was feeling so good about the way things were going, and after all that worry in his gut, the joy and relief just felt too good. And Geno wasn’t letting him have that.

  
“Just...just think you should be careful,” Geno said, wounded. They hadn’t known each other long, but Geno had never heard that tone of voice from Sid. It stung.

  
Sid sighed. “Of course, Zhenya,” he said quietly, dropping his voice and leaning in so that no one else heard Geno’s nickname. “Of course we’ll be careful.”

  
“Sid, trust me. Done this before, remember? And it so easy to feel good. So easy to feel like winner. But Sid,” he gestured to the room around them, to the excited tables full of newsies and their friends, full of everyone putting their faith in him. In Sidney. “For them, for you, jail…” Geno’s eyes got a far away look as his voice trailed off into a past he couldn’t take Sid in to. Wouldn’t take Sid in to. Sid squeezed his knee under the table and caught his attention again.

  
“Hey,” he chided, “what’s all that jail talk. What about last night? About how we were going to win the whole thing? Besides, we’ve got the pride of Russia with us. You and Ovechkin have done this before and won once. If you can do it, we can too.” He wasn’t trying to sound resentful and accusatory. But he couldn’t help it - all of those whispered words of faith seemed washed away in the daytime, and they threatened to pull at the newly solidified foundation of confidence that Sid was building. Sid felt like he was watching the whole conversation unfold from the outside, and he knew how it was going to end and was still unable to stop it.

  
“We will win,” Geno said, his voice as firm as ever. But this time, that’s not where his sentence stopped. “But Sid. Can win and be hurt. Can win and lose. And you…” Geno bit his lip before finishing the sentence, but he didn’t need to. Sid filled in the blanks on his own, for better or worse.

  
“And I’m not Yvgeni Malkin,” he spat in the lowest voice he could manage. “I’m not a fighter. I couldn’t hang in prison.”

  
“Bullshit,” Geno spat back, the English syllables particularly sharp on his Russian tongue. “Sid can fight. But why fight if no need? Why pain if no need? Sid...don’t need to do this,” Geno pointed at the notes Lettle was writing. “Not now. Can wait. Do it now, and I’m afraid. Afraid Sid go to jail, afraid Sid’s friends get hurt. Masha said -”

  
“- I DON’T CARE WHAT MASHA SAID,” Sid shouted, his patience snapping and his fists slamming down on the table. “We’re doing this, and we’ll be fine.” His eyes burned with a fire out of control, threatening to burn them all down in the process.

  
A hush filled the pub and a fork hit the floor, sending it’s thin metal clank into the uncomfortable silence. Geno’s eyes were wide, his body tense on the end of the bench. He wasn’t used to being yelled at. Sid breathed heavily, looking at all of the men gathered around him before sitting back down and taking a long pull off his now cold mug of coffee. He stood again, walking across the room, and threads of conversation began again in his wake.

  
“You okay, Cap?” Dupsie had slid up next to him at the bar, ostensibly to get a refill on his stein. Sid shrugged and took a large, foamy drink of the dark beer the bartender slid in his direction. Sid reached for the wallet in the pocket of his pants, but the bartender waved him off.

  
“I’m fine, Dupe,” Sid said, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.

  
“Yeah, seems it,” Dupsie said quietly, and Sid looked at him sharply.

  
“I didn’t ask to do this, Dupsie. All you guys, all these choices, I never wanted…”

  
“Yes, you did,” Dupsie replied, his voice almost angry, and he refused to meet Sid’s eyes. “You asked us all to trust you, Sid. And we do, all the time. But this time, we trusted you with everything we had. Don’t just throw that away because of...something, alright?”

Sid nodded. “Yeah, alright.”

  
“And go say sorry to Geno. He’s just trying to help. And,” Duspie looked around him, dropping his voice low and leaning close enough to Sid to whisper in his ear, “he seems to make you happy, Sid. Happy in the way that Flower looks when he comes back from Medda’s flower girls.” Sid opened his mouth to explain and Duspie just raised an eyebrow and shook his head ever so slightly. Sid clicked his teeth shut again. “Don’t worry about it. That’s all I’m gonna say, and I’m only gonna say it to you. But the man’s just trying to help, and he doesn’t know us at all, so go easy yeah?”

  
“Yeah. You’re right.” Sid felt the guilt in his belly like a wild animal. He was losing it, and he knew why. He was still worried, still so worried, but it was so much easier to pretend when Geno wasn’t worried. He could borrow confidence and faith from the other man, and it was a well he was getting used to drawing from, even in just the last few days. This was the first time he’d ever gone to pull up the emotional succor he craved and found the source empty. And now he felt like Geno had closed it down on him on purpose, and the thought terrified Sid. He couldn’t do it on his own. Couldn’t keep them all safe, and sane, and full of vim and vigor without Geno.

  
He downed the rest of the beer and slid the bar back to the bartender. Liquid courage consumed, he turned back to his table, ready to apologize for his temper tantrum.

  
He never got the chance. When he looked, Geno’s seat was empty.


	9. Thanks to Good Ole' Captain Sid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the Angst Pool, friends, where I very first learned to swim.
> 
> Which is my way of saying I'm sorry, don't hate me, it'll be better eventually.

Sid couldn’t see.

He couldn’t hear.

  
All he could do was stand in the middle of the stage, close his eyes, and feel.

Feel the beat of more than a hundred stamping feet, the thrill that ran through him as applause and hoots filled the air around him, so loud and so thick that it felt like a physical weight. He opened his eyes and waved his arms for silence.

Minutes ago, he’s frantically been sweating and shaking on the side of the stage, his eyes frantically scanning the crowd for Geno. He hadn’t seen him since yesterday. But...he knew Geno would be there. Geno had to be there. But then Lettle had called his name and Flower and shoved him gently and he was out of time for panic. It was time to be the captain.

  
“All of you are here because you trust us, and because you know what happened ain’t right.” A cheer. “And it’s time we showed all them fat cats sitting in their fancy offices that they can’t stretch them pockets with our nickels and dimes anymore. Pulitzer and Hearst, they think they own us. But there’s one big thing they don’t understand.” He waited for silence to fall over the crowd, for the boys to stop jostling each other long enough to actually hear what he had to say. “You can’t own what’s already free. And we work for ‘em. We don’t belong to ‘em. They need us as much as we need them.” Sid did his best to look in the eyes of every person he could see. “And today? Today we show ‘em just how much.” He turned and walked off the stage and the room erupted in a roar.

Sid kept walking until he was buried in the ropes and drop sets stashed in the theatre wings. He hopped up on a ledge and listened to the rest of the boys talking, making speeches, riling support and enthusiasm and giving directions for how the rest of the strike was going to go. Sid was exhausted, but couldn’t keep his arms and legs still, and before he realized it his mind had wandered and the noise behind him lulled him deeper into thought.

  
He hadn’t seen Geno. And Geno had promised. Promised that he’d be there. And not just be there. Be by Sid’s side. A small voice in the back of Sid’s heart tried to convince him that maybe Geno really was there. That the room was so big and the lights had been so bright that it was impossible to actually see who was there and who wasn’t. But he knew that wasn’t true. If Geno had been there, he wouldn’t have stood silent in the crowd. He would have stood silent on the stage, right behind Sid, a wall and a succor he had come to rely on in the last week in a way Sid was quickly coming to realize was dangerous.

It hurt too much to think about the fact that Geno wasn’t there, so he pushed his mind on, past the city and the rally and the here and now to the tall, dark greens of pine trees and silver-shored lakes that he’d only ever seen in his dreams. Taylor, and the kind of open air and freedom that seemed almost impossible. That continued to seem like it would only ever be a dream. He couldn’t leave his boys behind. He couldn’t give up hoping to go home to Nova Scotia. In his mind, he walked toward the cold gray water of the lake in front of him, and the wind whistled through the trees in a way that was eerily familiar.

Because it was eerily familiar. It was the coppers whistle.

  
Sid’s eyes shot open and cursed under his breath. He hadn’t been paying any attention. If he had, he would have realized that the noise had turned from triumphant celebration to chaotic terror, and the whistles gave him a pretty good idea why.

  
He turned the corner and the felt like his chest was going to collapse. The whole room had dissolved in thrown papers, running boys, screaming adult men, and the metallic tang of blood and adrenaline and violence that made Sid’s stomach roil. He didn’t have time to think, he jumped into the fray and pulled one of the DeLancey brother’s, the scumbag, off of Dupsie. Dupsie didn’t say thanks before turning and pulling a stranger off of a boy Sid didn’t recognize, and didn’t actually think was a newsie. Jumping off the stage, Sid scanned for the next person to help. Lettle was holding his own in the corner, and he counted a half dozen other newsies heading toward a side door and escape. But he didn’t see Flower anywhere. Where was he. He scanned, left to right, up to the balcony, and towards all the exits. He couldn’t see him anywhere.

  
Then he heard it. The crack of a bone breaking and the scream of someone in deep, unrelenting pain. He spun on his heel and there Flower was, where he hadn’t been a moment before. His face was green-grey and his eyes were rolling back in his head. On either side of him were two large, bearded men with gleeful hatred in their eyes. Sid let out a kind of animal roar, his voice scratching raw and his heart breaking. His fault. It was all his fault.

  
He ran at the two men, his hands curling into fists and his neck arching back, preparing to spit. These men were dogs, and they deserved to be treated that way. He swung and felt his fist connect with the chin of the man on Flower’s right. He grunted, and Sid felt a sharp pain shoot up the outside of his hand. The pain was quickly overshadowed, however, by the feeling of a fist in Sid’s stomach and the cold, hard wood of the stage floor beneath him. He turned on his back as the man he hadn’t punched threw Flower to the ground and stood over him, leering. He lifted his heavy booted foot and Sid closed his eyes, preparing for the blow.

  
It didn’t come, and when Sid opened his eyes, there was no one above him anymore. Flower was being hauled away by some other goon, and the man who’d been ready to stomp Sid’s face was flat on his back on the ground, underneath a tall, broad-shouldered man repeatedly slamming his fist into the mans’ face.

  
Geno paused to look at him and yell. “Go, Sid.”

  
“My spot. Meet me.” It was all Sid had time to yell before someone else was charging in his direction. He turned and ran, the twin knives of shame and disappointment cutting his every step.

**

Sid paced the shore of the tiny pond in unrelenting circles. He stopped counting after his tenth pass. He started to worry that Geno hadn’t heard him when the sun started setting and the chill in the air became more biting, more sinister. He was just about to give up, to head back to the theatre, the newsie house, the Refuge, anywhere at all as long as he didn’t have to be alone and panicking anymore.

  
“Sidney.” Geno’s voice echoed across the clearing and stopped Sid in his tracks. He turned on his heel and ran across the clearing, throwing himself at Geno at the same time he felt something inside himself break. He was so mad, so furious, so disappointed and so scared and so deeply, deeply sorry, that he clutched fistfuls of Geno’s homespun shirt in his hands and sobbed.

  
Geno rubbed his back in gentle circle and made soft shushing noises, murmuring in Russian until Sid began to quiet and find words for the chaos churning inside him.  
“All my fault. It’s all my fault.”

  
It was all he could say. And just like that, he pushed Geno away and his body shook with rage.

  
“You weren’t there! You promised you’d be there, and you fucking lied,” Sid cursed and paced and threw his hands up against a universe that was being decidedly unfair.

“Sid, didn’t lie-”

  
“That’s such bullshit, Geno! Where were you, huh? I looked. You weren’t there. And if you were then double fuck you for not being there with me. So, were you even there?” The shame on Geno’s face answered his question. “Why?” Sid didn’t mean for it to come out like a whine, but damn it he’d needed Geno. Geno had made Sid need him, had told him over and over again that he was in Sid’s corner and would be there for him, for the other boys, and then when the going goy tough, the pride of Russian uprisings was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t his absence that broke his heart. It was the fact that he’d believed him, had actually maybe believed he’d get to stop being captain for one second and have someone get his back. For once.

  
“Sidney, listen.” Geno grabbed for Sid’s hand and Sid jerked back as if burned. He stopped pacing, though, and stared daggers at Geno. “I...couldn’t be there, Sid. Talked to Masha last night, after…” After Sid had yelled at him and made a fool of him in front of everyone Geno was getting to know. “She knew.”

  
“She knew?” And then it hit Sid. The only thing she could have known that mattered. “She knew the cops were coming. She knew they were gonna bust up the rally,” Sid’s voice was a whisper but it echoed through the clearing like a scream. Geno nodded. “She knew, and neither of you said anything.Tried to warn us, or stop it, or,” bile rose in Sid’s throat and he held his closed fist against his trembling lips, pressing them into his teeth until it hurt.

  
“Sid would have listened?” Geno raised a pointed eyebrow. “You no want to hear what Masha say. I tried to warn. Tried to tell Sid that...is dangerous, so much so soon. Sid, you don’t want to hear. Why I try to tell you this, too?”

  
“Because this wasn’t just naysaying, Geno. Christ, people got hurt. People could have died and you didn’t say anything, don’t you understand that?”

  
“Understand death? Understand dying for cause, for justice? Yes, Sid, I understand.” Geno spat at him, his eyes flaming. It was the most angry Sid had ever seen Geno, and suddenly Sidney felt the kind of fear that must come from facing this brick wall of a man in a boxing ring. “Understand better than you. So when I talk, maybe you listen yeah? Because I know. But no. You know better, yeah? Because you captain? Well, Captain. How team now?”

  
Sid chuffed out a breath of air like he’d been punched in the stomach. May as well have been, the way Geno’s words landed like fists. In just a few days, he’d managed to figure Sid out entirely. He was right. He was so used to just doing things, he didn’t even know how to get help anymore. Even when he’d asked for it. Even when he needed it. Sid’s shoulders collapsed and he felt drained, exhausted, like he wanted to slip beneath the calm surface of the freezing black pond and just float forever, in dark and silence.  
“Broken, Geno. That’s how they are.” His voice was choked, clogged with a rock of emotion he couldn’t swallow down. “Lettle had four guys on him when I left. I don’t even know how Dupsie is, let alone the younger guys who were there. And Flower...Flower…” Sid sobbed once and trapped the rest behind his teeth. “Flower is in the Refuge and it’s all my fault.”

  
“Not your fault, Sid,” Geno tried to say again, but Sid waved him away.

  
“Yeah, well, forgive me if I don’t much want to hear it from you. You made it clear how you feel about helping our little cause, when push comes to shove. I’m gonna go and sleep, and then figure out how to get Flower home safe and make the rest of this go away.” Geno opened his mouth to speak, a crushed and confused look on his face. Sid held up a hand. “No, just. Don’t. I don’t need to hear it. Please don’t come back to the house anymore. Thank you for all that you did, but,” Sid sighed heavily as the cloak of responsibility settled firmly again on his shoulders, heavier than the last time. He’d gotten used to sharing the weight, however briefly. “But I don’t think I need help anymore. Not from you. Not...not from anyone.”

  
Sid brushed past Geno and walked out of the clearing, disappearing into the trees for a few seconds before he came running back to Geno, tears on his cheeks. Without speaking again, he cupped the other man’s face and placed a soft, salty kiss onto each corner of Geno’s lips, finishing with a peck on the forehead and one last look into those deep brown eyes. “If you ever cared at all, don’t come back here. Please.” His voice broke on the please, and he was out of the clearing before Geno could say anything.

So he didn’t see the tall man curse and kick a rock into the water, didn’t see him turn his face to the sky and gently trace his fingers against the spots where Sid’s lips had just been. He didn’t see the fog of breath obscure the backlit form of a champion fighter with nothing left to battle for.


	10. Tomorrow Won't Remind me of Today

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for the most subtle and brief allusions to sexual assault

Sid had always been a walker.

First, with his earliest steps, through the mottled forests and uneven fields of Nova Scotia. Much later, through the dirty alleys and warped wharves of ports all up and down the seaboard. Now, with everything he knew as up becoming down, he let his feet get him lost in the bustling noise that was New York.

He knew the city intimately from years of hawking papes up and down the city’s avenues and parkways, it’s boulevards and bypasses. He’d heard his voice echoing off of just about every available surface, but now he wrapped himself in silence like a cloak.

He missed Taylor so acutely it hurt, and he tried to comfort himself by revisiting all the places that reminded him of her. The boarding house on the water they’d both stayed in when they first got to the city. The small schoolhouse in Brooklyn where Taylor had learned English alongside her French, and where she’d first gotten the idea to teach. The small restaurant they'd found that was run by an old trapper from Montreal that made them feel, if not kindred, than certainly homesick. Everywhere she’d ever touched in the city, Sidney went, desperate to connect to her again.

Everywhere but the clearing. Sid couldn’t bring himself to go within a block of the place that had once been his only true peace. He’d told Geno not to come back, but how could he ever really be sure he wouldn’t see him? Or what he’d do if he did - or, most fearfully, didn’t - ever see him there again?

There was too much to think about, too many branchings of the past to try and suss out the ‘what-ifs’ of everything that had happened since he’d met Geno. So Sid didn’t think about it.

Out the door at sunrise and not home again except to fall into exhausted, dreamless darkness, Sidney did his best to turn it all off. He didn’t talk to anyone, and did his best not to see any of them either. He had let them all down, and if he compounded the problem by running scared now, he didn’t want to see it. The collective weight of all their failure centered fully on him, and try as he might to be more furious at Geno, or Pulitzer, or any of the dozens of local cops there at the rally that day, he couldn’t. That wasn’t how it worked when you were the captain.

Day after day, Sid walked and he hid. He heard whisperings on the street of rebellion, individual groups of newsies here and then breaking lines and raising hell outside of Pulitzer’s front door, but Sid ignored what he heard. He spent his days wandering, his nights circling The Refuge like a fox, trying to find himself a way in so he could get Flower out, busted leg and all. The few times one of the guys found him in the newsie house, Sid brushed them off. He had his winnings from the fight. He was going to find a way to free Flower, and then he was going to cut and run. He didn’t have enough to make it all the way to Nova Scotia, but he had enough to get the hell out of town, which was suddenly the only place Sid wanted to be.

The dark cloud that covered Sid was tangible enough to touch, and it served it’s purpose. It pushed everyone away, until Sid was beginning to wonder if it was ever really him they had believed in, or simply the possible change in headline he’d offered them. He was being petulant, and petty, and he was wallowing, but for the first time he looked for bootstraps to pull up on and came up empty. He simply didn't know what to do after he's tried so hard only to, ultimately, fail even harder than ever.

It shouldn’t have caught Sid’s attention when Lettle, and Tanger, and Dupsie, and half a dozen other men, fell into a hush when he walked through the door one day a few weeks after the failed rally. He’d spent so much time snapping at or completely ignoring them that they’d taken to waiting for him to leave before they resumed any conversation he happened to interrupt. It had made for some quick and awkward dinners of late.

This time, though, there was something about the glances they exchanged, something about the way Tanger bit his lip and kept casting glanes in Lettle’s direction. Sid made himself a cup of coffee, leaned back against the counter, and spoke to them for the first time “What’s cooking, gents?”

“...seriously?” Dupsie looked more infuriated that Sid had spoken than he had at the weeks of silent treatment. “You run out on us, act like a child for weeks, and that’s all you have to say?”

“I didn’t run out,” Sid said quietly, weakly. He had. And they all knew it. “And I’m not acting like a child. I just had some thinking to do.”

“And awful lot of thinking while the rest of us are acting, Cap,” Lettle said darkly. His eyes shone with hurt. “You know, you talked awful pretty at that rally considering how quickly you cut out on us after.”

“I couldn’t, I just - Lettle, you couldn’t walk most of last week, and Dupsie you still can’t make a proper fist with your right hand. And Flower…”Sid let his voice trail off in a choked sound as he heard the violent snap of bones breaking all over again, the constant background soundtrack of his thoughts recently.

“Flower knew what he was getting in to,” Tanger said, not unkindly. Sid shook his head.

“Yeah, yeah, you all did. It’s one thing to know and another thing to actually find yourself hold up in the Refuge so broken you can't run when they come after you.” Sid’s voice broke with an animalistic choke in the back of his throat. He should never have gone to visit Flower, should never have tried to cheer him up and ease his burden by letting the kid cry to him through the bars. Turns out time hadn't yet healed some of Sid’s wounds.

“So you’re the only one who gets to make a sacrifice like that, huh?” Duspie raised an eyebrow and Sid shook his head once before stopping and shrugging. “We went to see him too, Sid. Did you actually listen to him? Because if you had you would have heard what he told us - that he’s proud as punch of what happened, even with his current situation. Besides, if that’s how you feel, do you really wanna know what’s going on? Some of us might get hurt, and Captain Sid can’t bear one more cross for someone else.” The venom with which Dupsie spoke took Sid aback. The two had always been close, and Sid had never heard anything worse than teasing disdain from the other man.

“I don’t know. All I know is that I got this whole mess started. If I hadn’t opened my stupid mouth, we never would have been where we were. If I’d just listened to you, Dupsie,” he smiled a half-smirk of regret, “or you, Lettle, when you’d said not to trust Geno, then maybe Flower would be here planning his next date with Katie, instead of sitting up in the Refuge cold and broken and hungry.”

“Stop being such a God Damned martyr, Sidney Crosby. It’s infuriating,” Lettle snapped and slapped the table, sending the cups rattling. He breathed heavily through his nose, counting to ten under his breath. When he spoke again, there was something genuinely apologetic in his tone. “Besides, I never said that about Geno.” Sid snorted, and Lettle blushed. “Okay, so maybe I implied it, but I don’t think I ever actually said it. I like Geno, and things that day would have been so much worse without him.” Tanger slapped Lettle on the shoulder, and the large man just shrugged. “What? It’s stupid that he doesn’t want Sid to know, anyway.”

Sid felt his stomach hit the floor as the rest of the men exchanged sideways glances. “Who doesn’t want me to know what?”

No one spoke until Lettle cleared his throat and shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, for the love of God, you are all a bunch of pussycats. Are you really all that scared of the Rouski?”

“Not all of us could rival Goliath, Kettle,” Dupsie replied under his breath, suddenly interested with the whorls in the wood grain of the table.

Lettle laughed. “Ah, that you could all be so lucky Duper.” He looked at Sid and held his attention ferociously. “Without Geno, Sid, things would have been way worse.”

“But he wasn’t there,” Sid said in a whisper, but Lettle shook his head.

“Yes, he was. Not in the beginning,” he acquiesced, “but you remember, he showed up. You saw him?” Sid nodded. “Well, it wasn’t just him. Granted, we didn’t know all of this until after, but when Geno got word that the fuzz was coming, he got together with a bunch of his ring-buddies. Turns out not everyone can turn coin with their fists like your buddy Geno, so there are a good number of those guys who work regular jobs, too. And it’s not exactly pretty work, either, so they were basically friendly to our cause. Especially when they heard there’d be the chance to break skulls of the uniformed variety.

“Geno showed up with maybe a dozen guys in tow, all of them almost as big as he is, and they broke the line. Oh, man, Sid, if only you’d been there to hear some of the names they called those coppers. They weren’t even all in English and they still had me blushing from neck to ears.” Lettle laughed at the memory, his eyes shining. When he spoke again, though, his voice was quieter and his eyes burned into Sid’s as though there were words under the words that Sid could barely hear but was desperate to understand. “They took up as punching bags while the rest of us got away. I’ve never seen anything like that, that many huge men putting themselves in between swinging batons and the bodies of people they don’t know. Whatever Geno told them before the rally, whatever camaraderie or bribery he had to participate in, they saved us, Sid.”

Sid felt, but didn’t hear, the coffee cup slip out of his fingers and shatter on the wooden floor. His feet slipped out from under him, and his ass hit the floor hard before he could catch himself on the counter. The rest of the men jumped up and went to help, but Lettle stayed seated. Sid just stared at him. “He didn’t tell me.”

Lettle shrugged. “He was going to, or at least that’s what he told me. He was leaving the rally to go find you and tell you why he was late and why he’d brought the extra help and all that. But I guess that conversation didn’t go as planned, huh.”

Tears burned clear paths of glass down his cheeks, and Sid didn’t even bother to wipe them away. He’d been so, so unendingly stupid. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know. Haven’t seen him in a few days. He was helping out with some of the smaller demonstrations we’ve been trying to get started, but without their captain…” Sid sniffled and wiped his face with the back of his hands. He felt a spark in the pit of his belly, a slow warming he hadn’t felt since before the rally.

“I really cocked it all up, didn’t I.”

“Aww, Cap, don’t say-”

“Yeah, you did,” Lettle cut Tanger off before he got the chance to placate Sid unfairly. “But it’s never too late, you know.”

Sid heaved himself to standing and smiled, small and tentative, as though his face had forgotten how to in just the last few weeks. “Thanks, Kettle. Do me a favor?” Lettle nodded his head ever so slightly and waved his hand in a “don't mention it” gesture. “I screwed up royally, but do you think you could get the guys to meet me here one more time tomorrow night? For once and for all, I think I know how to end it.”

“Sure thing, Cap. But if the guys want to know where you ran off to?”

Sid grinned and grabbed his cap from his back pocket, feeling newly invigorated. “Tell them I had to go see about a boxer. Again.”


	11. One Night May Be Forever

Sid was not a small man. He wasn’t one to be easily cowed, or intimidated, outside of the fact that he genuinely didn’t enjoy fighting. There was no reason on God’s green earth he should be so terrified to walk over the threshold of a squat, three story brick tenament near the docks. He looked at the hastily scrawled address again before he shoved the square of paper deep into his pocket. With a deep breath, he squared his shoulders and walked inside.

The walls were dark, and the doorways were darker, and Sid squinted through the dusky gloam and looked for the tin door numbers until he realized he was on the wrong floor. Both sets of stairs and a right turn later and Sid held his breath, his fist suspended in mid air above the door. He couldn’t hear the knock over the blood rushing through his ears.

A blonde, wide man opened the door, and even Sidney had to crane his neck to look the man in the eye. Sidney coughed once and opened his mouth to speak when he heard Geno behind yell from inside the apartment.

“Illyanovich,  кто это ?”

The man at the door growled back in Russian, and Sidney’s flinch turned in to a shiver. The man stared Sidney down until he just couldn’t anymore, and he decided to become reacquainted with the lacing on his shoes.

He heard  the creak of a chair and heavy footsteps on the wood.

“ какая кудрявая кукла,” Geno said as he pulled the door open far enough to look over Illya’s shoulder. Sidney didn’t look up, and Geno tried not to swallow his tongue. 

“Sid,” Geno said his name like a sigh. Sid looked up, and the glow of the gas lamps on the wall behind him backlit Geno temporarily, and for Sid it was like the first time all over again. All he could see were legs and arms and the shadowy outline of a man too tall for all his energy.

“Zhenya,” he said, his voice breaking.

Geno blushed and clapped Illya on the shoulder. “дайте нам минуту?” The other man nodded, grabbing a coat and hat off the hook next to the door and pulling the rolled neck of his sweater a little higher against the increasingly chilly evening.

“Вести себя,  _ Zhenya _ ,” the man said, his grin sardonic as the blush on Geno’s cheeks deepend. He opened the door and slid past Sid, brushing his fingertips along the brim of his hat. “Nice to meet.”

“Nice to meet you,” Sid echoed, watching the giant of a man fold into himself as he walked around the corner and out of sight. He didn’t realize how long he’d been staring until Geno cleared his throat and Sidney felt his chest tighten. “...Hi,” he said quietly.

Geno’s arm shot out and a hand wrapped around the back of Sid’s neck, his fingers coming to rest on his pulse point. Sid yelped as the door slammed behind him and he found himself pushed up against the wall. Geno let go and jump back so fast it burned, pacing circles on the rug in the small dining nook in front of him while Sid caught his breath and his bearings. 

Geno’s room was small, made smaller by the two bunk beds stuck up against opposite walls and a crisscross of thin rope above their heads, draped with socks and undershirts and damp pocket squares. In one corner was a blackened coal stove, a single teapot on top, with a wooden rack of dishes and tins of dry goods behind it. A tabletop sat in the other corner surrounded by a collection of mismatched chairs. The wall was covered in black and white photographs, newspaper clippings, and what Sid would have sworn were political tracts. The only remaining floor space was currently being taken up by a frantic Russian swearing under his breath. 

Suddenly, Geno stopped in his tracks and pulled a cigarette tin out of his back pocket, flicking a match with his thumbnail and inhaling sharply, using the cigarette to point viciously at Sid. “Why you here?”

Sidney tried to take a step forward and thought better of it. He pressed his spine firmly against the wall and took a deep breath. He did his best to look Geno in the eye and speak past the lump in his throat. “I was wrong.”

That seemed to catch Geno off guard, deflating some of his anger slightly. “What about?”

Sid chucked under his breath. “All of it. Wrong about how I talked to you, wrong about out what I asked of you. Wrong about the fact that you weren’t there that day.” 

Geno’s head snapped up. “Who told you?”

“Flower. But, in his defense, he thought it was stupid you made him promise not to tell me in the first place. Why  _ didn’t  _ you tell me, Zhenya?”

Geno snorted and started pacing again, sucking down his cigarette until Sid watched it singe his fingertips. Geno threw it into the sink behind the stove and reached to light another. His hands were shaking so bad, the tin clattered to the ground and Geno’s cigarettes began to roll. Without thinking, Sid bent and began to help. Crouching next to each other, their hands buys and their gazes cast elsewhere, Geno began to speak.

“No words to describe Russian prison. When I leave there, I promise myself, never go back. Not there, not any prison. For nothing, for no one. But then, then Sidney shows up. Sidney and his boys, need help. So I find you Masha. And Masha says, maybe it not help, maybe it hurt. Maybe Sid get hurt. And it’s...it’s my fault. Because I promise I help. Because I promise...make Sid trust me. But Sid can’t trust. Because I can’t...should not have promised, because I can’t go back to jail.” Geno dropped the cigarettes again, dragging his knuckles across his eyes before he glanced at Sid. Sid kept his eyes trained on his own knuckles, but still didn’t miss the mottled red and sheen of Geno’s eyes.

“I would never want you in jail, Zhenya. To know that you were there, to imagine what they did to you. It destroys me.” It hurt to say the words. “I would never ask you to do that for me.”

“You would. You did. And is not fair, you not know what you ask. But you ask, and I can’t give. But then I realize, I can still help. No time to stop and talk, no time to explain, only time to get help for Sid. Big help. Punching help.” The noise Sid made was half laugh, half sob. 

“Well, according to Flower, you did more than help. You, the guys you brought with you - they wouldn't have made it without you.”

Geno’s breath hitched, but his shoulders shrugged dismissively. “Was nothing.”

“It was most definitely not  _ nothing _ . And don't do that.” Sid cut a glance at Geno and narrowed his eyes. “We both know what you did. But it still doesn't explain why you didn't tell me.”

Geno balled his hands into fists, sinking first back on to his heels before half collapsing to the floor. He planted his feet on the floor, head hanging between his legs as his forearms balanced on his knees. Sid had the brief thought that he looked so small. “I tried. In clearing. Went to tell you. But, when I get there, you so sad, and then so angry.”

“So it's my fault you couldn't be honest with me?” Sid snapped the words before his brain caught up with him. Same old problem, brand new trouble.

“Not fair, Sid,” Geno huffed. “You so, so mad that day. Day before, you say you no want to hear about Masha, so I think maybe you don't want to hear about this, either. Think, it doesn't matter. It not enough. Sid still hurt, people Sid loves still hurt. Sid leave, tell me not to come back. So I stay away.”

“No you didn't. Flower told me you've been helping with the other protest attempts.”

“Said I'd stay away from Sid. Still me,” he said. “Still same Geno who go to jail for students in St. Petersburg. Just because Sid gone,” Geno’s voice broke. “Doesn't mean fight is over.”

Sid was still half crouched over Geno, but he sank liquidly to the floor in the silence that followed. He plucked a cigarette from Geno’s closed fist and twirled it in his fingers. Geno silently offered him a match, which he declined. He had no interest in smoking it, but he needed something to do with his hands.

“Geno.” A deep breath, and he started again. “Zhenya. There, there aren't words I know to make you understand how sorry I am. I don't, I never told you about my sister, Taylor. Not really. See, she's a teacher, teaches English actually, back in Canada. And for a long time, my whole life, it was just me and her.” 

Sid took a deep breath and his voice shook when he spoke again. “One of the last things my dad ever said to me is that it didn’t matter that she was older than me, that I was going to be bigger than her and it's always up to the big guys to take care of the little guys. She's my sister, and it was up to me to keep her safe. When she left, and I couldn't do that anymore, it was…” Sid’s voice trailed off and his gaze darkened. 

“It was a dark time for me. And then Ovechkin found me, and put me to work at sea. I hated it, but it got me enough money to buy my first good set of shoes and a hundred papes. And Ovie introduced me to Lettle, and then to Flower, and next thing I know I have this whole new family, right. And I couldn't go with my sister, couldn't keep her safe anymore, but I had these other kids, and they were still around. Plus, if I kept at it long enough I'd get back to Taylor. But then I met you, and my little world, it got bigger and smaller at the sametime because you weren't a newise but also maybe I didn't want to go to Canada as much anymore, and no one had ever made me think that before.

So I trusted you, and I think I wasn't fair. To you, or to me. It wasn't fair, to you that I trusted you so much without telling you that I can be dumb, frankly, and stubborn, and completely irrational when it comes to the people I love and feel responsible for.”

Sid felt like he's never said so much in his life. As he'd spoken, he'd managed to scoot closer and closer to Geno until their shoulders touched and their thighs pressed firmly against each other. Sid could feel Geno’s warmth, and he leaned into it without shame. He cast a sideways glance at Geno and for the first time since he'd first tried to teach Geno English whether or not he'd been fully understood.

“Does that make sense? Do you understand what I'm saying?”

Geno chuckled, low and dark in a way that sent a bolt of electricity through Sid’s belly. “Da, Sid. Understand. You loyal, and brave, and think you dumb. And you in love with me.”

Sid choked, and his eyes resembled that of some newly caught wild animal. “I don't, I didn't…” Geno just sighed and took Sid’s hand in his, using his fighters strength and long fingers to stroke the inside of Sid’s wrist with surprising gentility. They sat there, Sid’s hand in Geno’s lap as Sid’s breath calmed.

“Want to try again,” Geno asked quietly, a gentle humor ran under his tone.

Sid nodded. “I love you, Geno. So much I'm afraid it might break me apart.”

“я люблю тебя, Sidney.” Geno lifted Sid’s palm to his lips and pressed a warm, dry kiss square in the center. He wrapped his fingers around Sid’s, and when he met Sid’s eyes his stare burned and his voice was scraped raw.

“Must know, Sidney. If you break, is because I break you. Always put you back together.”


	12. Love At First Sight is for Suckers (At Least, it Used to Be)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Geno pressed a finger to Sid’s lips and then leaned forward to press a gentle kiss to each corner of Sid’s mouth. “You always talking, Sid, and always say your mouth get you into trouble.” He pressed a soft, almost tender kiss to the middle of Sid’s lips and swallowed the moan when he passed his tongue over the seam. “Let my mouth make the trouble this time?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got the stomach flu and wrote myself some porn to feel better. 
> 
> I'm sorry, don't hate me, I love you

Sid’s eyes widened and a low, almost painful noise escaped the back of his throat. “Geno, I-”

Geno pressed a finger to Sid’s lips and then leaned forward to press a gentle kiss to each corner of Sid’s mouth. “You always talking, Sid, and always say your mouth get you into trouble.” He pressed a soft, almost tender kiss to the middle of Sid’s lips and swallowed the moan when he passed his tongue over the seam. “Let my mouth make the trouble this time?”

Sid was tempted to laugh, the line was so bad. But the temptation faded when he saw the hungry look in Geno’s eyes. He nodded, and dipped his head forward for another kiss. Geno met him half way, and all pretense of softness was gone. 

Geno took possession of Sid’s mouth, shifting his body so that he sat kneeling above the other man, his hands pressing Sid’s into the floor as his lips and teeth and tongue made quick work of taking Sid apart. Sid leaned back and sighed, dropping his chin back and exposing a long expanse of pale neck to Geno. Geno chuckled low, and dark, before finding the sensitive valley between his Adams apple and artery and biting down, hard. 

Sid gasped and his cock twitched. A wicked grin spread across Geno’s face and he swore in Russian. He placed a heavy, warm hand on the length of Sid’s erection and used his chin to gesture behind them to the set of bunk beds on the wall opposite them. Sid stood, wrapping his fists around Geno’s suspenders and pulling him across the apartment. Geno practically growled as Sid spun to face him and they fell to the bottom bunk, a tangle of broad chests, slim hips, and aching cocks. They lay there together like that, the heat between them growing as they mapped each others bodies in the growing dark. 

How long they stayed like that Sidney wasn't sure, but when Geno pulled back Sid whined through swollen lips and arched his hips instinctively, looking for friction. Geno.clamped one large hand on Sid’s hip and squeezed, his breath coming in ragged gasps. “Stay. Here.”

“Where would I-”

“Stay. Here.” Geno’s tone was low and menacing, and Sid felt a shiver go through him and nodded, biting his lower lip. He took a deep breath and settled himself on the mattress, fidgeting with anticipatory energy. He stilled, however, when he felt two large hands on him, one on his knee and one teasingly light on the fly to his pants. “Want to see you, Sid. May I?”

Sid swallowed thickly. “Yes,” he said, his voice rough. He watched as Geno’s long fingers slowly popped each button of his fly, and he felt his vision go blurry at the edges when Geno ran a rough, calloused palm over the length of him through his underwear. He lifted his hips to help Geno out, and he practically panted in relief as Geno pulled off his pants and underwear together, allowing Sid’s cock to spring free. Geno threw the pants behind him and nudged Sid’s thighs further apart, pressing light kisses to the inside of Sid’s knees. 

“Want to touch you Sid. Okay?”

“God, yes, Geno, I’m fucking dying.”

“I know,” Geno whispered, his hot breath dancing over the tip of Sid’s throbbing cock. He placed one hand firmly on Sid’s hip and let the other stroke long, slow pulls up the length of Sid. He caught a drop of precum off the tip and used it to ease his strokes. Geno watched Sid intently, and it was just as much the burn of his gaze as the movement of his hands that had Sid ready to fall apart. He dropped Geno’s gaze and lay his head back against the mattress, his breath coming faster and harder, Geno’s name dancing on his lips amidst a torrent of other nonsense. Right before Sidney lost it completely, though, Geno stopped.

“Want to taste you, Sid. Is good?”

“I swear to God Geno if you don’t put your fucking mouth on me now…?”

“What you do, Sid?” Geno arched an eyebrow wryly. He and Sid both knew there was no good end to that threat.

“I’ll...beg, Geno, I will, is that what you want? Please, Geno.” Sid sounded so wounded, so desperate and hungry, that Geno made a pained noise in return.

“No, Sid. No begging. Is plenty of time for begging later. For now,” and Geno ran the flat of his tongue from Sid’s balls to the tip of his cock, where he swirled his tongue and sucked hard. Sid arched off the bed and hissed, his fingers sinking deeply into Geno’s hair. Geno continued to lap the length of Sid, his tongue and teeth and lips and hands all working in tandem to bring Sid right back to the brink. Heat bubbled in his gut and he pulled fiercely when he came, Geno’s name the only warning the other man received. He swallowed Sid deep, milking him for every last drop until Sid began to flinch slightly as the almost painful attention. His arms and legs were heavy, and he waved his hand limply for Geno to join him.

Geno slid up Sid’s body and rested his head on Sid’s shoulder, cupping one hand around the side of his face, pressing a warm kiss to Sid’s jaw. Sid pressed a kiss of his own to Geno’s temple, running a hand up and down the other man’s back. After a few minutes of silence, Geno reached down to cover them both with the quilt at the end of the bed, but Sid grabbed his wrist.

“Where’s your...I want to…” Sid felt awkward, trying to ask for what he needed. Geno caught his eyes, brown knit in confusion until he noticed the blush on Sid’s cheek and gestured toward small table at the head of the bed.

“Oil on table,” Geno said in a nervous whisper. That explained his momentary absence before he’d gone down on Sid, and Sid shivered at the thought that Geno had already been thinking this far ahead.

Sid sat up and kissed Geno, slow and languid, as though he had nothing better to do than kiss Geno for the rest of his life. “Geno?”

“Hmmm?”

“You call that trouble?” He winked at Geno and they both laughed. Geno’s laugh caught in his chest, however, when he felt Sid tugging at the fly of his own pants, and without a word Geno shucked off every last stitch of clothing he was wearing.

“I...Can I touch you, now? Taste you?” Geno grinned and pulled Sid close by the back of his neck.

“правый гребаный сейчас,” he growled, catching Sid’s lower lip between his teeth and nipping firmly enough that Sid got the picture. 

He barely fit on his own bed, and every inch of his space felt invaded when he pulled his knees into his chest and Sid sank to his knees, pulling on Geno’s hips until he rested on the edge of the bed. He started when Sid’s breath danced over the tight ring of muscle, and he swore loudly in Russian with the first touch of Sid’s tongue to his hot, tight hole. 

Geno had never had this done to him before, had always offered to give rather than receive. There was a time after prison when he hadn’t been able to trust anyone with anything like this, and even once he’d moved on from that, it had always seemed easier to be the aggressor, to make sure his partner was so focused on his own pleasure that he didn’t have to worry about when they were going to touch him. But with Sidney, that all went out the window. He watched the top of the brunette’s head as his tongue swirled and danced and dipped further inside Geno as he began to relax. Every bone in his body was turning to liquid and he didn’t even flinch when one of Sid’s long, oil-slicked fingers pressed gently at his tender opening. 

A second finger quickly joined the first, and they moved slowly, opening Geno up, and he felt invaded. Full. Deliciously, achingly full. And then Sid quirked his fingers in just the right spot, and Geno saw white. He swore quietly and his cock twitched against Sid’s cheek. “Fuck, Sid, again,” and Sid granted his wish, dragging his fingers across that spot with each slow exit his fingers made. It didn’t take long before Geno was breathing heavily, his exhales hitching as the words coming out of his mouth were replaced by only one: Sid’s name, over and over again.

“Now, Sid,” he gasped as he came, hot and wet across his own stomach. Sid reached out and ran his fingers through the mess and returned his hands one more time to Geno, using the man’s come to ease three fingers in for the first and only time. Geno gasped and chuckled at the same time. “Dirty, dirty Sid. Is how you like?”

“You’re how I like,” Sid said, his voice far away as his eyes raked Geno’s body. As though unsure of himself, he bent forward and his pink tongue darted out, lapping like a kitten at the come quickly drying on Geno’s belly. Geno giggled and squirmed. “Sid! It tickles.”

“Sorry. I just...I don't like thinking I missed the chance to have some part of you inside me.” Blood flamed up the sides of Sid’s neck and Geno stopped breathing.

“You want,” Geno coughed and cleared his throat. “You want me inside you?”

Sid looked at Geno, his pupils blown and his voice heartbreakingly sweet. “I want everything you want to give me, Geno. I’m...I’m so sorry. I’m so, so fucking sorry,” and Sid lost it. Geno pulled him close and wrapped his arms around Sids shoulders. Sid sobbed into his shoulder, and if Geno hadn’t known the circumstances he might start thinking that fucking and crying were some kind of inextricable combination with Sidney. 

“Is okay, Sid,” he shushed into the curly head tucked beneath his chin. He ran a calming hand from shoulder blades to lower blade, and slowly Sid’s sobs subsided into a gently hiccup.

“I almost lost you. I almost like the guys. All because I was so, so stupid,” Sid whispered into the hollow at the base of Geno’s neck, turning his tearstained face as far away as he could so Geno didn’t see. Geno, however, wasn’t having it. He slid up against the headboard and dragged Sidney’s long frame up with him. He put a finger under Sid’s chin and forced him to meet his eyes.

“Not lose the newsies, Sid. The boys your family, family not just gone because of one mistake. And you, you not lose me, either. Not really.”

“But, after what I said, what I did, how I treated you…”

Geno just shrugged one shoulder and tilted one corner of his mouth up in a sardonic smile. 

“You just being stupid, Sid. Best friend Alexander Ovechkin, you think I not used to stupid?”

Sid laughed so hard his ribs began to hurt and his cheeks ached. He wiped the tears from his eyes and wrapped his arm back around Geno’s waist, snuggling down between the Russian and the wall of the bunkbed, feeling smaller and more protected than he had since Taylor was still in town. He sniffled pathetically and smiled up at Geno.

“Well, you’ve got me there. Like to think that I’m maybe just a bit smarter than, Ovie, though. I mean, I’m here and he’s not…” Geno mimed getting sick at the thought of Ovie in his bed, and attempted to leave in mock outrage. Sid apologized, pulling him back into bed between laughs.

The two stayed that way the rest of the night. At one point, Geno went to fetch some apples and cold chicken breast from the fridge, but other than that they lay together, talking about everything and nothing, as one day set and the other dawned, full of pink skies and promises. 


	13. Pulitzer and Hearst They Think They Got Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Laughing, they rolled out of bed and Sid stepped across the hall to the washroom on the floor, taking the time to fingerbrush his hair and splash cold water on all his parts that needed cleaning before heading back to Geno’s apartment and closing the door gently behind him. He cleared his throat and Geno looked up from where he was pouring them both steaming coffee into chipped mugs, beaming._

Sid stirred in the gradually brightening morning light, rolling over and groaning as shaft of early dawn hit his eyes and his back ached in protest at being forced into such a small space overnight. But then a warm hand snaked around his waist and the pain faded ever so slightly. 

“Morning, Sidneyusha,” Geno said, pulling the other man into the crook of his arm and burying a kiss amidst his mass of curls. 

“Morning, Zhenya.” Sid turned his face even further into Geno’s chest to hide the goofy grin that threatened to break his face apart. The two lay just like that, Geno breathing in Sidney's sleep-warmed scent and Sid tracing soft, sweet swirls along Geno’s ribcage, until one of their stomachs rumbled at the exact same time the other said “coffee?”

Laughing, they rolled out of bed and Sid stepped across the hall to the washroom on the floor, taking the time to fingerbrush his hair and splash cold water on all his parts that needed cleaning before heading back to Geno’s apartment and closing the door gently behind him. He cleared his throat and Geno looked up from where he was pouring them both steaming coffee into chipped mugs, beaming.

“When do your roommates come home?”

“Illya works until tomorrow. Gonch has girlfriend, never here. And Pavel…” Geno trailed off and he waved his hand in the air absentmindedly. “Even Pavel never know when he going somewhere. Why?”

Sid nodded and teased his lower lip with his teeth, his eyes dark and hungry. He reached behind him with one hand and threw a lock on the door. 

“Coffee can wait.”

**

Part of being rash was getting good at apologizing. However, it was also true that apologizing was one of those things that didn't necessarily get easier just because you got better at it. 

That was the lesson Sid was learning all over again as he stood in front of the assembled newsies, his literal hat in hand as he tried to find the words he needed. He cleared his throat a few times, opened and closed his mouth like a fish, and didn't start speaking until the warm, heavy weight of Geno’s hand came to rest on his shoulder. 

“I owe you guys an entire universe of apologies,” Sid said quietly, the air in the room one of reluctant suspense. “I was a total idiot, and you all deserve better.”

Silence.

Interminable, impenetrable silence.

And then Hagey spoke up, his voice brash and loud and full of the jocular teasing Sid loved so much about him. “Aw, come on Cap. You've been way stupider before.”

The tension broke like a wave, relieved laughter mixed with shouted “remember the time”s that sought to prove the point. Sid just smiled and let them chirp at him for a few more minutes. After a while, the crowd settled itself down and turned it's collective attention back to Sid.

“What're we doing here, Cap?”

Sid looked at all of his friends, taking one more second to bask in an unspoken forgiveness he still didn't feel like he deserved. When he spoke, his voice was laced with pain. “Flower.”

With one word, the room changed. The boys shared vicious, angry glances. They'd forgiven Sid, but there wouldn't be any forgetting until every last newsie was back at home where he belonged.

“Now, I knows we can all take care of ourselves, but the truth is I wrote a big check with my smart mouth, and it fell on all your butts to catch it. So it's up to me to make it right. Pulitzer, Flower, the rally, all of it. I asked you guys to meet me again because,” he looked at Geno, who nodded his head ever so slightly and cocked up the corner  of his mouth. “Because I need your help. Again.”

The request fell on silence as each man came to a single realization: Sid, intrepid newsie captain and consummate Defender Of The Small, was scared. And turning to them for help. No one spoke, no one knew what to say, until Lettle leaned back on two chair legs and laughed so hard, tears ran down his cheeks. They Hagey joined him. Then Dupsie, and then the whole room was awash in laughter, and even Geno managed a low, subsonic chuckle. Sid felt something in him unknot further. 

As his guffaws began to slow, Lettle wiped his face and just stared at Sid, amazed. “Of course we'll help you, you big oaf. Flower is family.” All around him, men were nodding. “One for all and all for one, right? What's that mean anyway if we all get going when the going gets tough?”

“It might.” Sid wasn't feeling the levity in the room. He couldn't get that echoing crack out of his brain. 

“Good,” Duper said viciously, and Sid was taken aback by the anger in his eyes. “Those men, they, they came into our house. They hurt one of our own. We tried to put up a fair fight and they came with brass knuckles.” Sid held his gaze and nodded. “So I say soak ‘em.”

An angry chorus of agreement. Sid felt his but twist. That still wasn't the answer.

“No, we don't. Hear me out this time,” he raised his voice against the rising din. “We weren't ready last time. We thought we were, sure, because we all thought we were all holding the same hand. But the deck is stacked, pals, and if we're going to get out of this without getting hurt again, we gotta learn from our mistakes and go higher, not lower.”

Confusion. He'd lost them. He looked to Geno, pained. His words were slipping and he was using him.

Geno spoke, and half of the room missed what he said, shocked as they were to hear the big Russian’s voice at all. “Sid right. This time, we know. We know how they fight. And we know how to beat them. First, we get Flower. Then, we get The World."


	14. Still We Fight For You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Pulitzer gulped, his glance darting to the other men in the room, none of whom were up to the task of taking on Geno at this meanest. He hesitated briefly, before nodding and turning his gaze back to the window. Sid suppressed a triumphant grin. Getting Pulitzer to listen is only the first step._

The building hadn’t looked so large the last time. The shadow of The World’s offices appeared to swallow Sid whole, looming over him with the threatened power of shutting down the life Sid had come to love so much. Next to him, he felt Geno take a deep breath and exhale with a shake. For some reason, the other man’s nerves made him feel stronger. Only one of them could panic, and if Geno was going to do it for him, then so much the better. Sid squared his shoulders and swung open the heavy oak door, Geno fast on his heels behind him.

Sid strode swiftly past the receptionist at the desk, as well as the cop standing next to her, ostensibly to keep people from doing exactly what Sid was about to do - when, of course, he wasn’t busy sleeping standing up. Sid kept marching as the cop stirred and the lady at the desk became more and more frantic in her attempts to figure out who he was and what he wanted. He heard Geno speak, and then the dull, painful thud of a fist on flesh, but he didn’t look back. He had one chance, and only one chance, to bring this whole thing to a final stop.

He swung another set of doors open by their gleaming brass handles and made a beeline for the large oak desk, ignoring the startled looks and cut-off speaking of the three old, bearded men standing there. Sid’s gaze zeroed in on the only one he needed to talk to, and felt an inner fire swell when he saw Pulitzer’s eyes widen ever so slightly in fear. 

“Mr. Pulitzer, I presume?” Sid said, coming to a halt at the corner of the desk, shoving his hands in his pockets and leaning back on his heels, as though he’d come to ask the man on an afternoon stroll. Mr. Pulitzer opened and closed his mouth like a fish, sputtering, his face shifting from a tomato pink to a wine-deep purple before he finally found his words and began yelling in a rage, calling for security and demanding to know who, exactly, Sid was.

“Sidney Crosby,” one of the men next to Pulitzer sneered. Mr. Snider, warden of the Refuge, seemed almost happy to see Sidney. They hadn’t seen each other since Sid had slipped out of the Refuge in the middle of the night on the top of the mayoral candidate’s carriage. Sid started a little bit, realizing the presence of the other man, but he plowed ahead with his plan and tamped down his growing panic. 

“Good to see you again, Warden. If you’ll excuse me, I have business with Mr. Pulitzer.”

“What business could that possibly be?”   


“Look out your window, Mr. Pulitzer.”

The old man, suspicious, crossed to the window and peeked through the curtains. “I don’t see anything.”

“Keep looking, and I’ll tell you a story.”

“I don’t have time for this kind of non-”

“Ah ah ah, Joe. Not so fast. See, I’ve got this friend. Big. Russian. And he’s waiting just outside for me to call him in, in case I need any help. Or, actually, in case you need any help listening. Oh Genooo,” Sid called Geno’s name in a sing-song, tempted to add a whistle. Geno slid through the door like a shadow, the darkest glower he could muster on his face, and a shiver of fear and arousal ran up and down Sid’s spine. He put that thought in the cage with all the others he’d have to face another day. 

Pulitzer gulped, his glance darting to the other men in the room, none of whom were up to the task of taking on Geno at this meanest. He hesitated briefly, before nodding and turning his gaze back to the window. Sid suppressed a triumphant grin. Getting Pulitzer to listen is only the first step. 

“So here’s how I see it, Joe. You don’t owe us anything, is how you see it. So you’ll say okay, do what we ask, and then turn around and put us over a barrel even harder next week. And that won’t do for any of us.”

“I don’t see-”

“K eep watching, Joe. So instead, I’m gonna make you a deal. A compromise. My ma always said a compromise is what happens when both people walk away a little sad. So you’ll get to keep the extra ten cents per hundred papes.” Sid had talked to the boys about this last night, and it had been a hard sell, but Geno and Ovie had joined them, had convinced them to look at the bigger picture, to give up a little to gain a lot more. Not all of them had been happy, but they were family. “But you’re going to buy back any paper a newsie doesn’t sell. Imagine, Bobby sells more papes because he takes more papes because he’s not worried Weasle is gonna make him eat them at the end of the day.” Pulitzer shot him a dark look, but shifted his weight uncomfortably. Sid knew he was right, and Pulitzer knew it too.

“You’re also gonna put a doctor in the newsie house, and each newsie living there will give you an extra two cents a month for him. We spend too much time on the streets, and a sick newsie doesn’t sell papes for anyone - including you.” Pulitzer opened his mouth to balk, but Sid raised an eyebrow and Joe kept quiet. 

“Last thing. We want the Refuge closed.”

“Absolutely not!”

“I don’t think so! 

“Now you’ve gone daft!” All three old men in the room shouted at the same time, a caucaphony of rage and incredulity.

“Tell me why I should do any of this for you instead of just having the Warden here take you and all your friends to the Refuge?”

Sid’s smile was small, suspicious. Victorious. “See, we thought you might say that. I know the Warden here,” Sid gestured noncommittally, “puts a few extra dollars in his pocket for every kid he’s got in there, and surely with so many of your industrious newspaper distribution agents locked away, there’s an overlap of interest in shutting it down, wouldn’t you say? Bad for business.”

“No I most certainly would not. The Refuge is the only place for rabble, and if some of that rabble at one time sold papers, that’s none of my concern,” Pulitzer said, his nose literally held in the air. 

“We also thought you might feel that way, Joe. There’s also the matter of our very, very popular and illustrious mayor, Mr. Roosevelt, and his promise to withdraw state support for any paper that doesn’t get behind our little newsie cause. That’s why I wanted you to keep an eye on that window. See it yet?”

Pulitzer had turned his attention to the room when Sidney had mentioned closing the Refuge, but he threw the curtains open, his body already rigid in fear, when Sid mentioned it again. His mouth opened in slow shock as he opened the window and the noise hit them all. The noise of hundred of ecstatic children running, yelling, celebrating as they ran down the street following a large, black carriage. The mayoral carriage. Pulitzer’s eyes couldn’t get any wider. “Why would he do that,” his whispered, his voice tinged with fear.

“Ah, my man Teddy has always been a hero of the working man. And he’s got such a good memory, didn’t even need my name again when I showed up in his office.” Sid gestured towards the window with his chin and a half-cocked grin appeared on his face. “Hear that, Joe? That’s the sound of every kid you put away. Every kid who’s gonna go start selling papes for every other guy in this town if you don’t take a good, hard look at what we’re asking for. What we’re willing to pay you for, and work hard for, like we’ve been doing. Look at us, Joe. Like people. And we’ll sell every single issue you see fit to print.”

Sidney didn’t get to hear Joe’s response. At that moment, the double doors to Pulitzer’s office burst open behind Geno and in walked Teddy Roosevelt himself, followed quickly by Masha, Lettle, and at the very rear of the line, Flower, his body draped over a crutch and his leg bound up in front of him. Sid’s face cracked open and Flower tossed him a wave, a blush creeping up to surround his grin. Sid wanted to run to him, to give him a hug and throw a million apologies at his feet. But their business wasn’t done, yet. Sid crossed his arms over his chest and looked back at Joe, still waiting for an answer.

“Mayor Roosevelt! Welcome,” Pulizter crossed the room quickly, looking like a panicked animal. He attempted to shake the man’s hand, but Teddy had already put his hands in his waistcoat and began to walk around the room.”

“Mr. Pulizter, Warden Snyder. I imagine, Joe, that you can’t possibly be aware of the condition your...compatriot is currently employing at that horrible place, or you wouldn’t still be hosting him in your company. You must not have seen this yet.” Roosevelt handed him a page of newsprint, bold words underneath a large photo of broken, emaciated boys with haunted, lonely eyes.

The paper shook in Joe’s hand, and he didn’t bother to read it. “Where did you get this,” he hissed through clenched teeth.

“You’re not the only one who keeps the oldies but goodies when the new toys come along, Joe,” Sid said darkly. Pulitzer’s eyes scanned the room and came to rest on Masha. He pointed at her menacingly.

“You.”

Geno stepped in front of Masha and visibly clenched his fists. She smiled and gave Joe a little wave. “Me!”

“I trust this horrifies you as much as it does me, Mr. Pulitzer,” Roosevelt said again, coming to stand next to the man’s desk, rifling through the scattered papers like they were his own. “And that now that you know what kind of horror these innocent children are being subjected too daily, you’ll join forces with the Mayor’s office to make the conditions known and to get the Refuge closed down.”

“Of course, Mr. Mayor,” Joe said quietly, shooting daggers at Sid as his knuckles turned white around the paper clutched in his hand. 

“So we’ve got a deal then, Joe?” Sid spit in his palm and held his hand out.

Joe looked at him, disgusted. “I do this - the buyback, the doctors, all of it - and you go back to work? All of you? Today?”

Sid nodded. “Newsies honor.”

Pulitzer stuck his hand into Sid’s - spit free - and shook.

The newsies smiled, the old men grimaced, and Roosevelt crowed, slamming his hat back down on his head and clapping Sid on the shoulder. 

“Come, my boy! Let’s go break the good news!”

He steered Sid outside, and as he passed Geno, the two exchanged a fevered, joyful glance. Geno reached out and pinched Sid’s thigh as he passed, and Sid winked at him.

Geno fell into step at the back of the exiting group, staring up a low-volume conversation with Masha, no doubt about the work still ahead of all of them.

Sid stepped out in front of the office and let the door shut fully behind the entire group before he raised his arms to bring silence to the crowd. It took a few moments, as those in the front saw him and began to quiet those behind them, a wave of hush and expectation falling over them all. Sid took the intervening moment to close his eyes, turn his face towards the sun, and take a deep breath. 

They weren’t done fighting, not by a long shot. They still lived in a world that would look at the little guys like them and try and brush them off, stomp them down, use them and throw them out like it was nothing. They would still be up at the crack of dawn, walking uptown and downtown, from Bartle Alley to the harbor, come rain or snow or sun. They would still be sick, and hurt, and inevitably something else would arise to take the place of the Refuge, and fair number of them would end up in that place, too. 

But they’d won. For today, this one time, they’d won. They’d made the big and powerful see that beneath their power was a whole mass of people. They’d been seen. And, going forward, they were going to be healthier, with a few more cents in their pocket and the reassurance they wouldn’t be punished for being ambitious. What they had all started, others would be able to take up and finish. 

Sid opened his eyes, grinned at the newsies standing on either side of him, and slipped his hand into Geno’s before raising their combined hands over his head in a victory “V”, yelling.

“We won!” 

And Sid couldn’t help laughing as the sunshine around him became mottled with the shadows of dozens of tossed caps, and the roar of joy filled his ears. He slipped his own cap out of his pocket, slipped it on to his head, and shouted again. “Now let’s get to work!”


	15. So That's What You Call a Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _A few more heartbeats, a few more ethereal clouds of breath, and Geno nodded. Relief coursed through Sid, warm and bubbly and a shot of summer through the winter evening. “You're sure?” His voice cracked with the weight of just how badly he wanted the answer to be yes._
> 
> _“Yes, Sidneyusha."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is finished. 
> 
> A world of thanks and love to thelittlestdoc and youshallnotfinditso for dealing with my insufferable lamenting, pining, and GIF usage while I was writing this.
> 
> Look, y'all! I finished a thing!

Sid and Geno crashed through the branches, their heavy steps and raucous laughter frightening the last of the winter birds from the tree. In the six weeks since the dust from the rally had settled, the temperature had dropped severely and it had snowed twice.

They had settled into a predictable routine, spending a few nights a week huddled together in Sid’s bunk at the newsie house, soft quiet kisses and soft touches muffled by an ever growing pile of blankets. Early morning coffees and a cigarette for Geno, shared in amicable silence at the table with Duper. And then long days of work, some better than others, followed by long nights perched ringside as Geno continued to punch his way to bigger and bigger glory. Wins, losses, profits and payouts - the end of every day brought them together. Whether for the night, or the briefest of held hands, squeezed in shadow on street corners as each went their separate way, it didn't matter. 

On the weekends, they'd stay at Geno’s, which was always devoid of his numerous shifting roommates, artists and students and warriors for justices big and small. Whether Geno made it part of the terms of staying, or whether they all truly did have legitimate business that kept them away all weekend, Sid was grateful. He loved his life, his home, his room full of the gentle noises of his sleeping friends. But he also loved Geno. Loved being loud with Geno. 

Which is why, when Geno attempted to shush him while at the same time tickling his ribs,  Sid refused to be quelled. He crowed into the stillness of the clearing, his arms slipping around Geno’s neck as he quieted enough to run the tip of his tongue along the man's exposed neck. Geno shivered and covered Sid’s forearms with his mittened hands.

“Why you bring me here, Silly Sid. Is freezing!”

“First ice of the year,” Sid said, his eyes glowing with joy. “Or first ice of the year thick enough to matter.”

“Matter for…” and Sid smiled, nodding, as he watched understanding dawn on Geno’s face. Pecking him on the cheek, Sid turned and ran to the bank near where he knew the trapdoor lay in wait. Geno followed him, hot on his heels as own boyish laughter began. 

They threw on the skates and pads Sid had hidden, and Geno set about the task of making sure the recent damp hadn't warped the sticks while Sid did a final examination of the ice to make sure that it would, indeed, be safe. Once he'd was satisfied, he glided out onto the ice and felt the first tinglings of thrill, freedom, and flying raced through him. He spent all year yearning for that feeling, and not for the first time he wished there was a way he could spend his entire life just playing hockey. Playing hockey and being with Geno. 

Genp, who was at that moment cruising toward, his tall frame surprisingly elegant on skates, the hockey sticks sitting in his hand with a kind of vague, comfortable familiarity. 

“You play?”

“Not for long time, but everyone in Russia play. Mothers given skates and stick with cradle.” Sid laughed and rolled his eyes, although he supposed the same could be said for lots of the people and places he knew in Canada, too. 

“Well then,” Sid said, a smirk on his face and his eyes cutting with a competitive edge. “Game on.”

Geno’s smile turned dark, almost feral. “Game on,” he growled, and nudged Sid aside with his shoulder as he dropped the puck on the ice with a crack. He took off down the ice, batting the puck around like he was born to do it. This time, it was Sid’s turn to chase after him, his jaw set with determination. Sidney Crosby didn't lose. Not to Pulitzer, and certainly not to Zhenya. 

**

“So, you lose by three points, or four?” Geno gloated,  his chest puffed as he sipped at the the hot thermos of coffee he and Sid had brought. They perched on a collection of rocks set back just underneath the trees, covering it with a thick roll of rawhide and woven wool blankets Geno had won off a cowboy making his way west on money won in the ring. Sid had managed to clear a small spot and find enough kindling to start a small fire, and huddled together under a blanket, with the glow of fire warmer than the quickly disappearing sunshine, Sid couldn't care less about the game, about the cold in his fingers, about anything at all.

Geno rested his chin on Sid’s shoulder and nipped softly at his ear. “Penny for thoughts, Sidneyusha?”

“I'm just happy. Really, really happy.”

He felt Geno smile again his skin, and he felt flush.

“Me too, Sid. Me too.”

Sid reached out and interlaced his fingers in Geno’s, taking the thermos with his other hand and talking a long drink before setting it carefully on the ground at the edge of the rock. When he sat back up, Geno had moved even closer, impossibly, and Sid leaned into the sudden invasion of his space. He pressed a kiss just below Geno’s Adam's apple, using his free hand to cup his neck  and press a thumb along his jaw. He felt the rumble of Geno’s pleasure, and his thumb traced gentle circles on the back of his hand. 

“Geno?” he said quietly, another quick kiss along a stubbled cheek.

“Hmmm?”

“Come to Nova Scotia with me.”

Geno went stone still beneath him, and Sid held his breath. “When?”

“Now? Soon, I mean. In time for Christmas. I want you to meet Taylor. To see everything all lit up and covered in holly and ivy and the water so gray it's green and you can practically hear the sleighbells on the wind, and sometimes the sky lights up with a rainbow, only it's nighttime and it's electric and-”

Geno put a finger on Sid’s lips and made a shushing noise. Sid quieted and took a deep breath, beating back the temptation to wrap his lips around Geno’s finger and suck deep to the last knuckle. 

A beat passed, and then another, and Sid was tempted to try and laugh, wave it away and take it all back.

“For how long?” Geno asked finally, his voice contemplative rather than anxious. 

_ Forever,  _ Sid wanted to say. Instead he settled for “a while.”

A few more heartbeats, a few more ethereal clouds of breath, and Geno nodded. Relief coursed through Sid, warm and bubbly and a shot of summer through the winter evening. “You're sure?” His voice cracked with the weight of just how badly he wanted the answer to be yes. 

“Yes, Sidneyusha. Is big trip, could be long time, but if you sure you want me, I go. Be with you around the world and back again, if you have me.”

Sid blushed and shivered, pressing a long kiss to Geno’s lips, parting his lips with a sigh and licking into Geno’s mouth like it was a precious gift he wanted to unwrap slowly. 

He pulled back finally and looked up at Geno’s eyes, his pupils blown and his lips swollen. “I don't need you anywhere but here with me. Now. Always. I have you, Geno, and now I want you to take me.”

Geno watched Sid’s lips as he talked, a dangerous smirk sliding into place. He ducked his head down and took possession of Sid’s mouth, laying claim to him and waste to him all in the same moment.

Sid melted, his muscles relaxing beneath Geno’s large, wandering hands. He stretched his body to meet Geno more closely, pressing the tense length of him into the other man's thigh. Geno groaned into Sid’s mouth and cupped his erection, running light fingers from the base to the tip while Sidney shivered. Geno shifted them both slowly, careful enough not to dislodge the blanket keeping both of them warm, until he was straddling Sid’s hips and he stared down at Sid through the warm, heavy dimness. 

Slowly, he unbuttoned Sid’s flannel shirt, touching every inch of Skin slowly exposed as he went. He locked his thumb and ran the pad of Sid’s nipple and the man arched and hissed beneath him. Shifting himself to the inside of Sid’s thighs, he unbuttoned Sid’s fly and pushed his pants down around his calves, leaving his legs slightly bound together, just wide enough for the large Russian to fit between them. With a long, lurid suck on his first finger, Sid almost came at the wet, obscene popping noise it made when Geno pulled it out of his mouth. He gritted his teeth and held back as that same finger than began to trace slow, wet, achingly delicious circles on Sid’s hole.

Sid moaned, deep and animalistic, his eyes locked on Geno’s as he spat into his own hand and wrapped a firm fist around his dick and pulled once, twice, three times as Geno licked his lips.

“Ready, Sid?” It didn't matter that they'd done it before, or how many times, Geno always paused here to ask, to check in with Sid, and Sid fell a little more in love with him every time he did. 

“Please, Zhenya.” Sid’s voice trembled, pleading. Geno watched for the next time Sid stroked up and he slid one finger all the way inside, Sid gasping and giggling all at the same time. One finger, and he already felt so filled, though he knew he could take much, much more. Geno leaned forward, kissing Sid deeply as the change in angle had him slipping a second finger and brushing that spot that made Sid squirm in delight. They stayed like that, Geno finger fucking Sid open while Sid jacked himself off until Sid couldn't take it anymore, biting down on Geno’s shoulder as he came all over his own stomach.

He cursed in English and some key Russian phrases Geno had taught him, his head knocking backwards against the rock hard enough he saw stars. He felt out of his body as he watched Geno, his eyes hungry and dark, run a hand through the come cooling on Sid’s chest. Geno first brushed his own lips, his tongue darting out and tasting Sid, before using the other hand to undo his own pants, panting until he had the hand not inside Sid wrapped around his own cock, pumping viscioiusly, mixing Sid’s come with his own fluid, just starting to bead up. It was filthy, and hot, and if it hadn't been Geno Sid might have flushed with embarassment. Instead, he pushed his hips down harder onto Geno’s hand, pulled his knees up as far as he could manage, and begged.

“Please, Zhenya. I'll die if you don't.”

Geno put the hand he'd had on his cock on Sid’s cheek, and Sid breathed in the scent of them both as Geno made calming noises. He slid his fingers from Sid, and Sid could have cried with the absence, until a second later when he felt Geno position himself at Sid’s entrance. With a kiss to the forehead and a whispered “я люблю тебя”, Geno pushed inside him.

Slowly. So slowly, Sid felt time stop. There was nothing, and nowhere, but the two of them. Geno, and Sid, and Geno inside Sid as hips bucked faster and faster and Sid scratched at any bare skin he could reach, thin red lines leaving memories on shoulders, back, forearms. Sid arched his hips to meet Geno’s thrusts, and after a period of time that was both an eternity and no time at all, Geno was coming with Sid’s name on his lips and Sid’s hand cupping the back of his neck.

Geno fell against him, bringing the blanket down with him, and the cold wind against Sidney's suddenly exposed face felt refreshing. He wrapped his arm around Geno’s shoulders and pulled him close, pressing them together as he felt Geno go soft inside him. The man pulled out and snuggle into the crook of Sid's arm, his contented breaths sending little trails of warm breath across Sid’s chest. 

As dusk turned into night, Sid’s mind began to wander as his eyes and limbs grew heavier. Eventually they'd get up. Roll up their pack, put out the fire, head back to Geno’s small apartment and smaller bed. But for now, they were content. They were together, warm, sex-slick and headed home.

Eventually.


End file.
